'The Last of Us' series gets the greenlight from HBO

HBO is going through with a TV adaptation of The Last of Us. We first heard about the project back in March, when it came out that the company and developer Naughty Dog had signed a partnership to develop a series based on the 2013 title. HBO confirmed TLoU writer and creative director Neil Druckmann will pen and produce the series alongside Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin. Sony’s PlayStation Productions will produce the series.

The series will follow the events depicted in the first game. Mild spoilers for a seven-year-old game ahead: The Last of Us stars Joel, the survivor of an apocalypse that saw much of the world’s population either perish or turn into fungus-like creatures known as the Infected. Twenty years after his world came to an end, Joel is asked to help smuggle a teenage girl named Ellie out of Boston. As these things usually go, what starts out as a simple mission turns into something more complicated, with Joel and Ellie eventually crossing much of the US to fulfill their goals. HBO hasn’t said if the project will touch on what happens in The Last of Us Part II.

Now that HBO has greenlit the production, there’s less of a chance it gets stuck in development hell like a certain movie based on another Naughty Dog property. This could also be the start of many more adaptations based on popular Sony-owned gaming properties. When news of the project first came out, PlayStation Productions co-president Chris Parnell told The Hollywood Reporter The Last of Us was the “first of many” shows the company planned to create.