On Monday, HBO released a teaser to its anticipated series adaptation of the hit video game The Last of Us.
September 26 is known as Outbreak Day to fans of the PlayStation hit: According to the game, it’s the day people began being infected by a deadly disease caused by the cordyceps fungus, which turns the infected into shambling, zombie-like predators.
The Mandalorian‘s Pedro Pascal stars as Joel and fellow Game of Thrones vet Bella Ramsay plays Ellie; as in the game, Joel is tasked with protecting the young woman at all costs.
The teaser, set to “Alone and Forsaken” by Hank Williams, gives some creepy peeks at the post-apocalyptic world in which they live.
There are shades of the COVID-19 pandemic in the footage — something the PlayStation hit couldn’t predict in 2013, when the first game came out. Tattered signs warning passersby of the symptoms of infection seem eerily prescient as Joel makes his way through deserted streets.
The smuggler is charged with leading Ellie out of a dangerous quarantine zone and across a post-apocalyptic United States. “You keep her alive, and you set everything right,” someone urges him in voiceover.
Ellie is immune to the disease and may be the key to reversing the plague.
Also starring Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna and Anna Torv — as well as Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who respectively voiced Ellie and Joel in the game and its sequel — The Last of Us is set to debut in 2023.
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