It simply cannot be done. Every single one has failed. And dismally. We are talking about video game adaptations. Whether it’s the quite frankly egregious Street Fighter movie (hammy acting! Mr Jean-Claude Van Damme playing an American but sounding Belgian! Horrific fight scenes for a film with “fighter” in the title!) or last year’s perplexingly empty Uncharted, which managed somehow to bury Mr Tom Holland’s considerable charisma in an avalanche of formulaic movie-making, it would seem that translating a game from the console to the TV screen is, at this point, virtually impossible, certainly in terms of making something watchable. Now a new player has joined the game. HBO’s The Last Of Us arrives this month. But wait. Could it actually be… good?

The Last Of Us. Sounds like the small band of people still employed at Twitter.

It does, but it’s also a post-apocalyptic action-adventure video game that originally came out in 2013.

A video game, you say?

Not just any video game, but one of the most popular video games of recent times. To date, it has sold more than 20 million units.

That’s a lot of games. What’s so great about it?

Picture the scene. The near future. A dystopian US a few decades after a fungal brain infection has turned most of the world’s population into flesh-eating mutants. Sounds a bit like the world now, no? We help our hero, Joel, a grizzly, disgruntled smuggler, escort teenager Ellie through a hellscape of totalitarian military quarantine zones, morally bereft nomads and a settlement of questionable integrity. Plus, the aforementioned mutants, of course. With immersive gameplay that’s unpredictable, tense and full of heart-attack-inducing jeopardy, it’s a “near perfect analogue for [Mr Cormac McCarthy’s] The Road”, according to the video game website IGN.

I love The Road. Sounds bleak, though.

It is. Very. And now it’s being turned into a TV series.

By whom?

Emmy award-winning Mr Craig Mazin, who created and wrote the HBO hit Chernobyl (and The Hangover Parts II and III, funnily enough), alongside, perhaps more importantly, Mr Neil Druckmann.

Who?

The creator, writer and creative director of the video game.

What makes this different from other video game adaptations?

It is the first HBO series to be based on a video game, which says a lot, although it’s not surprising. The game has been praised for its complex characters, its story and its depiction of female and LGBTQ+ characters. And while it does have its big action set pieces, it’s more grounded in realism (bar the horrific human-munching monsters), where stealth and horror take precedence over all-out, guns-blazing shootouts.

Anything else?

The beating heart of the game is the relationship between Joel and his surrogate daughter, Ellie, which provides the lauded narrative that has had gamers weeping over their controllers come the end. All of which lends itself to a faithful adaptation that prioritises a story driven by characters, rather than action. (Video game movies are bad because most video game stories are bad.) According to Mazin, HBO has given him and Druckmann complete creative freedom – often a good sign. Even so, the changes they’re making “are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but to enhance”.

So, it’s kind of like The Walking Dead?

Kind of. But less mind-numbingly relentless and melodramatic.

Who’s playing Joel and Ellie?

Mr Pedro Pascal and Ms Bella Ramsey.

Oberyn Martell and Lyanna Mormont from Game Of Thrones?

Bingo. It also features Messrs Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, potentially the most underrated actors working right now.

Ooh, comedic actors in dramatic roles – my favourite. Is this going to be a limited series?

We’re not sure. Word is there could be as many as eight seasons, with a second season likely to get the green light if the first goes down well with viewers.

Eight seasons?

What can we say? Sometimes people don’t know when to put a good thing down and walk away.

So, it really could be like The Walking Dead?

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

All right. When can I see it?

Imminently. The show debuts on 15 January. Ready, player one…