The Last of Us TV show: release date, cast, story and everything we know

Batten down the hatches and load up on ammunition: The Last of Us TV show is almost here. Its source material sits atop our list of the best videogames of the 2010s, and the series is being helmed by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin for HBO – the broadcaster behind highly acclaimed hits such as House of the Dragon, Euphoria and Succession – so suffice to say, there’s reason to be excited. 

As in the Naughty Dog games, The Last of Us TV show will follow the journey of wanderers Joel and Ellie as they try to survive in a post-apocalyptic America overrun by the zombie-like Infected. The series will loosely mirror the plot of the first game, The Last of Us, which came out all the way back in 2013 on PS3 and instantly became a critical hit thanks to its incredibly emotive storytelling and grim world. Fans were then treated to an equally-brilliant follow-up in 2020 in the form of The Last of Us Part 2 on PS4.

So, with The Last of Us TV show’s debut now just weeks away, we’ve herded together all the confirmed details about its release date, development and cast – alongside in-depth speculation about its story and future beyond season 1. 

Release date: The Last of Us’ nine-episode first season will begin streaming on HBO Max on January 15, 2023. UK viewers will be able to watch the series’ debut in the early hours of Monday, January 15 on Sky Atlantic and Now. 

Cast: Pedro Pascal will star as Joel, alongside Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Merle Dandridge, Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna, Storm Reid, Anna Torv and Nico Parker have all been confirmed to feature, too, while the game’s original voice actors, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, will also be appearing in some capacity. 

Story: We’re expecting the show to follow the story of the first game, with elements of the second thrown in. Showrunner Neil Druckmann has, however, suggested that some episodes will “deviate greatly” from the source material.

The Last of Us TV show release date

HBO has confirmed that The Last of Us will begin streaming HBO Max on Sunday, January 15, 2023. As with other HBO-produced shows, UK viewers will be able to watch the series’ debut in the early hours of Monday, January 15 on Sky Atlantic and Now. 

Confirmation of The Last of Us’ release date came just a day after HBO inadvertently revealed the news through a rogue description in the series’ HBO Max preview listing.

News of the show’s 2023 release date also came after a series of misleading blunders from the show’s cast and crew during its lengthy production. For instance, one of the series’ directors, Kantemir Balagov, for a time had an Instagram bio reading, “The Last of Us series (2022)”, while GamesRadar highlighted an IMDb post, shared on star Bella Ramsey’s Instagram Story, that also wrongly gave the show a 2022 release date.

In any case, we now know that we’ll be seeing The Last of Us TV show in January, which will qualify the series for next year’s Emmy awards. 

Where can I watch The Last of Us TV show?

The Last of Us TV show will be available to stream on HBO Max in the US (or whatever Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service is called at the time) and Sky Atlantic and Now in the UK. In Australia, you’re looking at Foxtel or Binge. 

The Last of Us TV show development

There’d been chatter around a movie adaptation of The Last of Us for a good few years before HBO announced the TV version, with the project even reaching a second draft script and auditions being held for actors before development stalled.

Back in 2015, Naughty Dog co-president (and writer of The Last of Us games) Neil Druckmann was quoted as saying he’d “just finished a second draft” and had “a table read with a bunch of actors”. Although “there are some big changes,” he added at the time, “the tone and what the story’s trying to say is pretty faithful to the game.”

Shortly after Druckmann’s comments, screenwriter and executive producer Craig Mazin (who won numerous awards for his work on the highly acclaimed Chernobyl mini-series) said his feelings were that “you can’t make a movie out of this, it has to be a show. It needs length. It’s about the development of a relationship over a long journey, so it has to be a television show – and that’s that, that’s the way I see it.” 

It appears Druckmann and Mazin reached some sort of agreement, then, with a TV adaptation of the game being confirmed back in March 2020 – with the pair both on board as writers and executive producers.

Unlike the six-episode Chernobyl or nine-episode Watchmen, Mazin has confirmed that season one of The Last of US TV show will have 10 instalments.

While we were initially told that Chernobyl director Johan Renck would be helming the pilot for the show, it turns out that award-winning director Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole) will be handling its debut outing instead. 

He’ll be joined on the directing roster by (via Collider) Peter Hoar (It’s a Sin, Daredevil), Jasmila Zbanic (Quo Vadis, Aida?), Jeremy Webb (Shadow and Bone, The Umbrella Academy) and Liza Johnson (American Horror Story, What We Do in the Shadows). Webb and Johnson will reportedly share shot-calling duties with Mazin and Druckmann.

The composer for both the original The Last of Us game and The Last of Us 2, Gustavo Santaolalla, will be returning to work on the HBO show adaptation, too. So get ready for a tense and tear-jerking soundtrack to accompany the action.

The Last of Us TV show story

HBO’s official synopsis for its big budget adaptation reads as follows: 

“The story takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”

It seems that the show will be following the basic story of the games, then – though Druckmann has confirmed that some episodes will “deviate greatly” from the source material, in terms of their focus on drama over hardcore action. For the production team, the “philosophical underpinnings of the story“ were the essential aspects they wanted to get right with the adaptation.

“As far as the superficial things, like should [a character] wear the same plaid shirt or the same red shirt? They might or might not appear in it,” Druckmann said, “that’s way less important to us than getting to the core of who these people are and the core of their journey.“

The Last of Us TV show may also be set in a slightly different time period to the game that inspired it. A report on IGN India notes that leaked set photos suggest the zombie outbreak began in 2003, rather than the 2013 that’s part of games canon. With the story set 20 years after the end of civilization, that would place the main action of the TV show in 2023 – in keeping with its proposed 2023 release date.

Den of Geek, meanwhile, believes that set photos from a Calgary shopping mall (see above) are a major hint the new TV series will feature a version of the acclaimed ‘Left Behind’ DLC from the game, an extended flashback about Ellie and her friend/romantic interest Riley’s encounter with a horde of Infected (the fact Storm Reid has been cast as Riley would seem to confirm this.)

The Last of Us TV show cast

Back in 2020, Druckmann confirmed a few familiar characters from the game who’ll be appearing in The Last of Us TV show.

We know Tess (Joel’s partner of sorts), Marlene (a member of the Fireflies), Riley (a childhood friend and romantic interest of Ellie), and Maria (wife of Joel’s younger brother) are all going to be part of the show – and we also know some of the actors who have signed on to play them.

Right now, The Last of Us TV show cast list looks like this:

• Bella Ramsey as Ellie
• Pedro Pascal as Joel
• Merle Dandridge as Marlene
• Gabriel Luna as Tommy
• Nico Parker as Sarah
• Anna Torv as Tess
• Nick Offerman as Bill
• Storm Reid as Riley

Ellie is going to be played by Bella Ramsey, who played Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones. Joel has an equally titanic casting choice in the form of fellow Game of Thrones star-turned-Mandalorian warrior/Baby Yoda’s minder Pedro Pascal. 

Merle Dandridge will reprise her videogame role as Marlene, while Gabriel Luna will also star as Tommy, Joel’s younger brother. Joel’s daughter, Sarah, has been cast, too – she’ll be played by newcomer Nico Parker.

It was also confirmed in December 2021 that Parks and Recreation and Devs star Nick Offerman will be starring as Bill, a post-pandemic survivalist living alone in an isolated town. He was brought on to replace actor Con O’Neill in the role, who reportedly had bow out of the show due to scheduling conflicts.

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed in July 2021 that Fringe and Mindhunter star Anna Torv will play “smuggler and hardened survivor Tess”, while Deadline revealed in January that Storm Reid (Euphoria, The Suicide Squad) is on board to play the aforementioned role of Riley.

There is, of course, still the matter of the blanked out name in Druckmann’s aforementioned tweet. Given that it’s four letters, there’s a chance he could have been referring to Bill (now confirmed to be played by Offerman), though there are other characters who fit that description, too, depending on what kind of time frame we’re looking at.

The first of these is Anna, Ellie’s mother, who would be a new character, as she was only mentioned in a letter in the first game. The other two choices come from The Last of Us: Part 2 in the form of Dina or Abby. 

Dina is Ellie’s love interest in the second game (no prizes for guessing what happens to Riley), while Abby is another protagonist in Part 2. If they’re included, we could be looking at some multiple perspective stuff akin to The Witcher.

The Last of Us TV show trailers

HBO released the first official trailer for The Last of Us TV show in September 2022, before a second, longer trailer followed in December. You can watch both below. 

These extended teasers followed a much shorter teaser trailer, which released by HBO back in August as part of the broadcaster’s 2022/2023 sizzle reel:

The Last of Us TV show: how many seasons?

There’s been no confirmation of how many seasons HBO is planning for the series, though Joel voice actor Troy Baker has provided a vague window of “three, four seasons” being necessary to match the story beats of the game at an appropriate pace – rather than constraining the story within a single two-hour film or rushed single season.

“I think that, episodically, you can far more effectively tell this story, because trying to condense that experience of 16 hours into [a few] hours is impossible… it goes past the point of distillation, into reduction,” Baker said in an interview with GameSpot). “I think being able to do this episodically and go, ‘We’ll do this for say, three or four seasons’ and be able to almost 1:1 tell [the story of the game] presents a great opportunity for more people to experience it.”

HBO has made passing references to “future seasons” beyond an initial first season, though any continuations are likely to depend on the success of season one. Here’s hoping, then, The Last of Us season 1 – which, as a reminder, begins streaming on January 15, 2023 – can deliver on the promise of its source material.