The upcoming episode 3 of The Last of Us makes the most significant changes from the beloved original video game story of the entire series, according to its co-creator Craig Mazin, and it could prove to be the most divisive.
“In terms of departing from the source material, it is our most significant departure,” Mazin tells Esquire Middle East.
Mazin also singled it out as the episode that he is most curious for The Last of Us fans, both new and old, to see.
“I’m really interested to see how it goes,” Mazin says. “I have no idea how it’s going to land out there. I know that at least with the people that we’ve shown it to amongst ourselves at HBO, and critics, happily, have just been thrilled. And I hope that carries through to the general audience as well.”

Mazin is not just curious because of the changes, but also because of how proud he and his co-creator Neil Druckmann, who also created the game, are of the episode.
“I think it’s a beautiful episode. I think it’s and important story, and I love it.”
So far, fans are loving the series more and more, with episode 2 scoring a 9.5 on IMDb with 8000 votes so far, up from 9.2 for the first episode.
HBO has shared a promo for the episode, which centers around the character of Bill, played by Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation, Hearts Beat Loud).
Watch the preview for the next episode of The Last of Us below:
What is The Last of Us episode 3 about?
In the preview, we see Offerman’s Bill living in a town by himself that he has fortified, who meets a man named Frank who (game fans know) becomes an important part of his life. We also see Bill meeting with Joel (Pedro Pascal), and warning of people who may come and try to raid his fortified little village, with action shots of Bill defending the town in the preview.

We’re not going to offer any spoilers beyond that, but we can say that in the games, Bill is an important and long-running character who continues to be mentioned even in the sequel, and becomes a significant part of the journey of Joel and Ellie as they attempt to find a cure/find Joel’s brother Tommy across the fallen country.
Bill remains a fan favorite character from The Last of Us game, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest ever made.
Why make changes to The Last of Us?
Mazin also told us that his relationship with Naughty Dog co-president Druckmann was very good, as they both agreed that certain changes needed to be made to make sure the game was not just a love letter to the game, but a great work of art in its own right, fit for a new medium.
“Neil and I had just about as good of a relationship as you can have between the author of source material and the primary adapter of the source material. And part of that is because he was so smart,” says Mazin.
“There was so much understanding about not just how adaptation worked, but why adaptation that is too slavish to its source material falls apart, but also an adaptation that strays too far afield of the material, also it falls apart.
“In that latter case, what’s the point? So we had just a very good ability to focus on the story and what we thought would be best and not on ourselves,” Mazin told us.

“The other thing that Neil and I shared it was something that I shared with Johan Renck, who directed Chernobyl. We have a basic rule: We will agree. We may not agree right now, no. But when this conversation is over, we will agree. And when you know you’re going to agree, that removes a lot of the fear that you have that you’re going to get bullied into something or ignored or talked over.
“And time after time, when we saw things from a different point of view, we found common ground. And we agreed. And sometimes that meant that I said, you know what? You’re right. And sometimes he went, you’re right. Then a lot of times, we found a different way entirely, a third way of doing things. And that was always exciting,” says Mazin.
The big changes that episode 3 has in store are something that they are both proud of, but no one can be certain how diehard fans of the game are going to take it once the episode airs next week, only on OSN+ in the Middle East.
Episodes 1 and 2 are streaming now here.
Read our full conversation with Mazin here.