HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ made a small change from the game that could have huge story implications

The Last of Us is a highly-popular game series developed by Naughty Dog, with the first game released back in 2013. The series was so popular that it spawned a TV adaptation which is currently being handled by HBO. The Last of Us TV series has already received rave reviews from fans of the game and casual viewers alike for their unique depiction of life and humanity’s struggles after a zombie pandemic.

One of the risks of doing TV adaptations of book or game series is that spoilers are very easy to come by. To alleviate this, producers tend to change certain aspects of the show to make it unpredictable and a fresh viewing experience. One such change came in the form of a beloved character in the game, Maria, being pregnant in the show when there was no such implication in the games.

This is probably done to subvert fans’ expectations of the show by introducing a new wrinkle in the story that did not originally exist. While this change has no far-reaching consequences yet, viewers are definitely used to seeing how drastically a plot can deviate from the source material, with Game of Thrones as a perfect example of that.

In the games, Maria is Tommy’s wife and by extension, Joel’s sister-in-law. She and her father together ran a settlement in Jackson County after the initial outbreak happened. Maria was also opposed to Joel’s plan of escorting Ellie to the Fireflies because she predicted Joel would be in danger if he did so. Maria is depicted as a strong and independent woman in both the games and the TV series.

Whether this change will have far-reaching consequences or not is yet to be seen.