Why The Last of Us is the Most Successful Video Game to TV Adaptation Yet
Ahead of the anticipated finale of The Last of Us on March 12th, online casino guide 6Takarakuji conducted a study to see where this attention grabbing show ranks when compared to other video game to TV adaptations.
By studying user ratings from IMDB for TV adaptations and the original video games they were based on; 6Takarakuji was able to determine the average star rating of the pair together.
The data showed that to date, The Last of Us is the highest rated video game to TV adaptation of all time as voted by users on IMDB.
The show has an average IMDB user rating of 9.4 across the video game and TV series. The TV show, which debuted on HBO in January earlier this year and stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, has taken the fanbase by storm and often appears on the lips of video game fans young and old.
The Last of Us series was found to be rated 0.6 stars less than the video game source material, according to IMDB. The original game, which sold 1.3 million copies during its first week of release in 2013, is rated an impressive 9.7 on IMDB. The Last of Us is one of only two video game to TV adaptations ever to be rated higher than nine stars on IMDB, the other being Arcane: League of Legends.
Henry Cavill’s The Witcher came second with an average IMDB star rating of 8.3 across the video game and TV series. It is one of several adaptations where the TV series was rated more highly than the original game, with the game scoring 8.1 and the first installment of the TV series scoring 8.5 on IMDB. The show, which follows Geralt, a mutated monster hunter, broke Netflix records when it achieved 76 million views in its first four weeks of streaming.
Arcane: League of Legends came third with an average IMDB star rating of 8.1 between the video game and TV show. The show, which has a rating of 9.0 stars on IMDB, was the highest rated ever Netflix original show, shortly after its 2021 release. In fact, Arcane achieved a higher rating than the MMORPG League of Legends, which only scores 7.2 stars on IMDB.
Castlevania comes in fourth place with an average IMDB user rating of 8.05. Castlevania isn’t just one of the longest-running game franchises on this list, with more than 30 games, but it also earned a rating higher than the original title. The original 1986 game received an IMDB star rating of 7.8, surpassed by an 8.3 star-rated TV show.
The Paramount+ original TV show Halo ranked fifth place, with an average IMDB rating of 7.95 across the video game and TV adaptation. The 2022 show scores 7.1, which is lower than the 8.8 IMDB star rating for the original game. This is still higher than the average TV series adaptation rating across the other titles in the analysis, which is 6.8 stars. When released in March 2022, Halo was Paramount+’s most watched series premiere globally in its first 24 hours.
Tron comes in sixth place with an average 7.85 star user rating. Thai Tv show which stars Elijah Wood as the voice of the main character received its rating from the 1982 arcade game, which is rated 7.5 stars on IMDB, and the TV show released in 2012 which was rated 8.2 stars.
Dragon Age comes in seventh place. This animated action series received an IMDB rating of 6.4 stars, much lower than that of the 9.1 star rated Dragon Age: Origins video game. Together they produce an average IMDB star rating of 7.75.
British crime drama Gangs of London, starring Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole, comes in eighth place with an average IMDB star rating of 7.7 across the game and TV show. The show was rated an impressive 8.1 on IMDB, while the original Sony PSP game received an IMDB rating of 7.3.
Ninth place is a three-way tie between groovy cult classic Earthworm Jim, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mass Effect. All three have an average rating of 7.45 stars on IMDB when combined with their original games.
Tenth place goes to The Legend of Zelda with an averaged IMDB rating of 7.3. The 1986 retro classic, which follows mystical character Link as he tries to save the land of Hyrule, has an IMDB user rating of 8.6 stars. The Legend of Zelda TV series, which was released three years later in 1989, received a lower rating of 7.3.
Across the titles studied, TV show adaptations tended to be rated lower on average than their original video games. In fact, the video games had an average IMDB rating of 8.01 stars, while their TV show equivalents scored 6.96 stars on average.
