The Last of Us TV series first look image features Joel and Ellie

Neil Druckmann, creative director of the video game The Last of Us, is an executive producer on the HBO television series adaptation of the game and has such substantial creative influence on the show that he’s even directing at least one episode of it. Over the weekend, Druckmann took to social media to share the first official image of Pedro Pascal and Belle Ramsey as the game’s lead characters Joel and Ellie… but since the show’s premiere is so far away (the first season won’t even be finished filming until June of next year), Druckmann also made sure to save some details of Joel and Ellie’s live-action appearance for later. The image only shows the characters from behind.

The video game The Last of Us is set

years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for.

The cast of HBO’s The Last of Us includes Pedro Pascal as Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”; Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “a 14-year-old orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; and Con O’Neill and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town.”

The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Druckmann serves as executive producer alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions, and writer Craig Mazin.

Druckmann and Mazin are both directing episodes, as are Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole), Jasmila Zbanic (Quo vadis, Aida), Peter Hoar (Doctor Who), and Ali Abbasi (Border).