The Final of Us HBO trailer impressions: Save who it can save you

HBO dropped the official trailer of its TV sequence The Final of Us, and it’s making an impression throughout the web. Contemplating that is my favourite online game sequence, I’ll drop just a few ideas on what I observed.

The present will debut in 2023, and it’s coming from the inventive group of Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.

First, the tagline on the video is “Save who it can save you.” That catches my consideration as Joel, the lead character alongside Ellie within the sport and present, goes by a journey within the sport the place he cares about household, loses his personal after which cares about nobody else. That’s earlier than he meets Ellie.

It’s a little bit jarring at first as present actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey don’t actually seem like Joel and Ellie within the sport. However the music and setting shortly make you’re feeling like they’re each acquainted and one thing completely different, which is what this present is meant to be for players and new audiences coming to the universe.

So “save who it can save you” in reference to Joel is ironic. He doesn’t wish to save anybody else, no less than till he meets Ellie, a lady who at first he transports like cargo from one place to a different. We see the survalist world, the place people in an enclave are portray over an indication from the Fireflies, a renegade group. The entire sport is about their altering relationship as they make their method by horrible conditions within the post-pandemic world. (Sure, the that means of that final phrase has modified within the final couple of years).

The tagline from The Final of Us jogs my memory of the road from Schindler’s Checklist, “Whoever saves one life saves the world complete,” which has all the time resonated with me as appropo for this sport.

The trailer does a superb job of capturing that journey, the place Joel will get caught with Ellie, an inexperienced 15-year-old who will get caught with Joel. Then she has to run to outlive alongside Joel after which she has to study to struggle the zombie-like Clickers and merciless human survivalists as nicely.

The present appears to have contemplative moments the place Joel is trying inward, as he seems on the blood-written signal “once you’re misplaced within the darkness,” in addition to bursts of horrifying violence, like the place we see Ellie cowering or with blood spattered on her face. There’s that terrifying second within the trailer that jogs my memory of so many scenes within the video games the place Joel tells Ellie to be quiet as they attempt to evade a Clicker that’s pushed by sound.

And sure, it looks as if we’re entering into the enterprise of not solely reviewing video games, however evaluating sport TV exhibits and flicks as nicely. I’m getting used to it.