It's kind of hard to say, because the game is pretty expressly designed to be a narrative experience. The gameplay largely exists to serve the story, ratchet up tension, make you feel things about the characters and what they're doing. I think it becomes even more obvious watching the show, which largely did away with zombie and other combat encounters wherever it could. The very pretentious gaming term is "ludonarrative dissonance" and TLOU has very little of it outside of dying and healing. I think that translates better into a live action show than most other games. TLOU is uniquely adaptable in this regard.

But there are definitely lessons to be learned, like respecting the story and the vision and the point of the franchise/game you're adapting, and getting the creators involved as much as possible.

Put it on HBO.

1. Choose a game with a strong narrative. Not every game has enough substance to be an entire movie/series. (looking at you Rampage)

2. Play the fuckin' game and hire people who loved it. Or better yet hire people that actually made it.

3. Don't cheap out on it. If you don't believe in it enough to put real money on the line, don't do it at all.

4. Take your time. Even a short video game can be 8-12 hours of content. Don't try to cram it all into a 2 hour movie.

5. Understand the difference between video games and film as a medium. It's one thing to watch a character do something, it's entirely different to be the one doing it, but the emotion needs to translate all the same.

6. Video games are more than just splashy effects. Even the best VFX won't save poorly developed characters and shoddy writing.

The thing with The Last of Us is it had an unusually strong story for a game in the first place - which was on par with prestige TV quality already. Most games, even great ones, do not have that kind of detailed story.

A lot of games, even great ones, the narrative in the game play is much more open to interpretation or there's no specific linear narrative and character development beyond the player's imagination.

Half Life 2 for example, an amazing experience, and the Half Life IP calls for an adaptation due to its setting and lore. An adaptation would require the invention of new characters, conflicts, character arcs etc even if characters from the original made an appearance.

Game series such as Fallout or Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid even - which beg for a series adaptation - their strength is more in the world, lore and setting than specific character stories, and any adaptation would practically require an entirely new story and additional characters created for the medium.

So to me the main lesson is to take the material seriously, be respectful to the game and the setting and the lore. But most future great adaptations of games are going to require a lot more new storytelling, TLoU game was kind of a stand-out exception, as the story lends itself to a very straightforward re-telling.

There’s no magic formula to these adaptations, there’s no, 50% word for word remake, 50% new material, that varies from property to property. But where these game adaptations go wrong is that the writers and show runners see the source material as “below them”, they actively seek to change what worked because they see themselves above games. Why the last of us worked is it respected the game, it knew what worked and kept the heart of the story. Craig Mazin loves and respects the games and with the help of Neil Druckmann figured out what needed to be kept and changed to make an adaptation work for tv. Was it perfect? No, but it delivered a damn good season of TV regardless of your knowledge on the game

Get the writer(s) from the game to work with the showrunner, that way they can be sure the show understands WTF the game was talking about.

Sticking to the story actually works believe it or not

1. Be faithful to the source material

2. Hire writers who actually care about the source material

1. Having someone from the games working actively on the show.
2. Having the showrunner/writers genuinely care about the material.
3. Mostly following the major beats of the story, expanding/changing as needed for a TV medium.

Then of course being somewhere like HBO with a good budget helps considerably as well but I really believe LoU succeeded because of those three points. Neil and Craig make a fantastic team and it really showed.

They should choose game properties that lend itself better to a story driven form.

A great video game doesn't necessarily mean it translates to a great TV/movie, and vice versa. Even though Halo was a "bad" adaptation it was never a property that should have been adapted in the first place. It's nominally a first person shooter where the protagonist is meant to be faceless so the player can imagine themselves in his shoes. Cut scenes aren't as frequent as in TLOU and many of the game's excitement is made up of your progress in the game's areas. It's a great game. But that's not a good property to adapt.

I don’t think faithfulness to the source material is actually the answer here.

A faithful Bioshock adaptation probably wouldn’t be as successful, for example.

So much of TLOU’s success hinges on how well it did with audiences that hadn’t played the game (and likely never will) and it’s most popular and critically acclaimed episode was almost a complete departure from the story that took place in the game.

The only real lesson to learn is to have very good writing that appeals to a wider audience than just gamers. Or to make games that take their storytelling cues from prestige TV.

I guess it's 'pick games that translate well to a movie instead of picking games that have a really strong brand'.

Zelda has been a strong brand for decades but it doesn't lend itself to the screen. There are little to no personalities among the characters. The game consists of exploration, puzzle solving and collecting.

I think Blizzard made this mistake when they chose to adapt Warcraft instead of Diablo. Diablo translates to a linear story so much better.

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Adapt a game which was essentially a movie/series to begin with.

Stay the fuck away from Paramount