‘The Last of Us’ Game Composer Is Returning to Score the HBO Series

Fans of the hit dramatic survival action game The Last of Us have plenty of reasons to be excited. A sequel is due to release this May, and HBO has started production on a series based on the story of the original, from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and The Last of Us creative director & writer Neil Druckmann. Now they have one more reason to get hyped, because it was just revealed that Gustavo Santaolalla, the composer who gave The Last of Us its hauntingly memorable score, will be returning to compose the score for the HBO series.

Druckmann broke the news on his Twitter account, calling it “beyond exciting” that Santaolalla would continue to work on the franchise as it gets adapted to television.

In The Last of Us, a fungal outbreak wipes out most of humanity, transforming the infected into mindless blind monsters. A scavenging smuggler named Joel is tasked with escorting Ellie, a teenage girl seemingly immune to the infection, to a hospital run by a resistance group who think they might be able to use Ellie to develop a cure. It’s a grim world, with roving gangs and fascistic quarantine troops terrorizing people right alongside the monsters. It’s also one of the most dramatic and powerful stories ever told in a video game, and Santaolalla’s brilliant score is a major contributing factor to its emotional resonance. Teaming two of the game’s primary creative forces with Mazin, who created an equally bleak and haunting contagion drama with Chernobyl, is a good sign that the series will be something special.

BY TOM REIMANN/Collider