Last Of Us Show Timeline Completely Flips The First Game’s Time Jump

The Last Of Us show’s timeline completely flips the first game’s time jump. The beloved game will be adapted by HBO and it seems that it will remain largely faithful to its source material. However, one crucial change to the story’s timeline has now been confirmed.

The Last Of Us has been incredibly popular over the last several years, in large part due to the complex and emotionally resonant bond between its two lead characters, Joel and Ellie. Even with its more divisive sequel, The Last Of Us Part II, the first game remains well-regarded as one of the best games of all-time. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramay are cast as Joel and Ellie, respectively, and they are joined by others including Storm Reid as Riley and Nick Offerman as Bill.

As of right now, HBO’s The Last Of Us appears to be committed to sticking to its source material as closely as possible. That being said, the show, as confirmed by NaughtyDogInfo, is already making one big change. This being that it will completely flip the time jump from the first game. The original Last of Us game jumps all the way to 2033 following the game’s emotionally harrowing opening scene, which depicts the day of the virus outbreak during the year 2013. In the show, the time jump will shift to being from 2003 to 2023.

Though there is no exact confirmation as to why this is the case, it likely involves practical reasons regarding production. While The Last Of Us video game set the outbreak day during 2013, it would be much more complicated for the show to follow suit. 2013 saw many advancements in technology that have come to define modern times. Trying to replicate that while molding it to fit the dystopian world of The Last Of Us would be quite tricky and no doubt require high production costs to achieve. In contrast, the year 2003 saw society still in a transitioning period towards more high-end technology before these advancements were made. It would be much easier and cheaper for the show to use 2003 as the blueprint for its production.

As of now, no further details have been given regarding the timeline switch for HBO’s The Last Of Us. That being said, it’s incredibly likely that the main reason for this was to ensure the showrunners do not run into cost issues during production. It’ll be interesting to see how much this shift changes the storyline. With Neil Druckmann serving as an executive producer and the cast looking solid so far, it seems, for now at least, that the show is in capable hands.

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