The Last of Us writer and creative director Neil Druckmann jokes about backing out of the new HBO series after seeing a controversial post on Twitter. Yesterday, HBO announced that it is making a TV series about The Last of Us with Sony and Naughty Dog but didn't say when the first episode would be available.
On Twitter, Craig Mazin, the creator of the series Chernobyl and a writer and producer of The Last of Us series on HBO, revealed his top 20 favorite video games. There are some great games on the list such as The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City, but things became controversial after Charlie Brooker, the creator of Netflix series Black Mirror, asked Mazin if he plays with the Y-axis inverted. Inverting the Y-axis in a game means that players will move the left thumbstick up to move backwards and will move it down to move backwards.
This is a popular choice for gamers whose first games were flight simulators as this is how the controls worked in those games. However, not everyone supports it and Neil Druckmann, who is working with Mazin on The Last of Us series on HBO is one of these people. In a post on Twitter, Druckmann joked "is it too late to back out?" as he seemed to rethink his decision to work with Mazin on the new show.
Druckmann may not support Mazin's control scheme choice and Naughty Dog may be busy working on The Last of Us 2 before its release date, but he probably isn't going to walk away from the series. If Druckmann really did feel like leaving the series because of a control scheme, there would be bigger issues here than inverting the Y-axis.
Sony has also canceled The Last of Us movie for this HBO series which shows just how important this is to the company and to Naughty Dog. It's unclear how much money is being spent on the show, but it's unlikely to be small.
What it does show though is that Druckmann and Mazin are good friends and while they may not support every decision the other makes, they can have fun with it. The writing and story of The Last of Us is thought of as some of the best in gaming and putting that in a TV series may be difficult. The show is more likely to be a success if its two writers can laugh and joke with each other though and these tweets will make some fans more excited to see it.
The Last of Us Part Two is due to release May 29th, 2020 exclusively on PS4. The Last of Us TV show is in the works.