The departure of The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann from the HBO series shows how difficult it is to balance video games as sprawling franchises [Gamify My Life]

Making video games is hard, and anyone who tells you differently is either lying or not trying hard enough. Especially when you’re also trying to make one of the biggest TV shows in recent years. That’s the job that Neil Druckmann, the Naughty Dog executive who was behind The Last of Us as both a video game and a hit HBO series, had. Of course, that is in the past now, as Druckmann rather suddenly stepped down from his duties as showrunner on The Last of Us to focus on the thing that made him famous – making video games.

Naughty Dog has been known for its cinematic style since the first Uncharted game (though I would argue that you could see it as far back as the Jak and Daxter series on the PS2), so seeing The Last of Us turned into the kind of prestige TV that HBO has become known for wasn’t a huge stretch. However, I was always struck by how odd it felt that Neil Druckmann insisted on getting involved in the show in the first place.

There is such a huge difference between making video games and making TV that I wondered if Druckmann would be better used in a producer role rather than as a showrunner. Still involved and able to offer his opinion on things, but not as intimately involved. And I was largely wrong because the first two seasons – season one in particular – are very good. Respect for Druckmann for showing he can make great games and great TV. However, it came at a cost because all this time, Druckmann has been head of creative at Naughty Dog, where, honestly, things have become stagnant in his absence.

Do you know what the last game Naughty Dog released that wasn’t a remake or remaster? 2020’s The Last of Us Part II. Now, I’m aware that games are becoming bigger every year, taking more time (and money) to make, but that is a long time without an original game, especially from a company that has been as prolific as Naughty Dog. While I won’t argue that it is solely because Druckmann was distracted by making The Last of Us TV show, it certainly couldn’t have helped.

We’re living in a time when video games are being eyed up by Hollywood more and more as fodder for potential adaptations. Games aren’t just games anymore; they’re becoming sprawling multimedia franchises. Nintendo is teasing more films after the live-action The Legend of Zelda movie. A Death Stranding movie is in the works. This year alone, we’ve got Mortal Kombat 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 coming out, and 2026 will give us a new Super Mario Bros. movie. Video games are a bigger business than ever.

I feel like Druckmann’s removal as showrunner on The Last of Us (it isn’t clear if it was his choice or if HBO was as underwhelmed with season two as many fans were) is a canary in the coal mine moment for video game studios. There is, after all, money to be made in expanding their games into bigger properties and new media. But it comes with a risk: giving up full creative control of the characters they’ve created.

Unless you’re Nintendo and can afford to co-finance your movies, chances are developers will need to license the rights to their games to a film studio. The results can be mixed; for every great video game movie like Mortal Kombat (1995), there is a terrible video game movie like Mortal Kombat (2021). Often studios will have to distill the essence of the game into a two-hour experience and go in a totally different direction, which is how we got the Resident Evil movies.

Neil Druckmann clearly has a lot of passion for The Last of Us. It could certainly be considered the most ambitious game he’s worked on, and I would probably argue that it is the best-written title he’s been in charge of. So, he wanted to exert more control over it when it made the jump to live-action. It is his baby, and I respect that. But it came at a cost. Spreading himself – and, in effect, Naughty Dog – too thinly resulted in Naughty Dog not doing what game developers need to do, which is to make games.