New The Last of Us HBO trailer shows off more of its cast and locations

HBO has released a new trailer for The Last of Us TV show, or rather "the" trailer for the show. The one we saw before was only a "teaser" even though it's only 30 seconds shorter, go figure.

The new trailer does feature all-new footage though, which is nice. It begins with Ellie (Bella Ramsey) asking Joel (Pedro Pascal) what keeps him going if he doesn't have hope, to which he offers a heartwarming reply about family before asserting that Ellie is not family, just "cargo."

The trailer outlines the pair's mission to go west in the hopes that they can develop a cure to the setting's zomboid fungal infection out of Ellie's unique immunity, all while side characters stress just how nasty scary a journey it's going to be.

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The trailer then cuts to a montage of scenes set to "Take On Me" by A-ha, only with some lonely piano notes and radio static to give it pathos. It's still a good trailer, don't get me wrong, but the government needs to intervene and call a moratorium on sad, ironic pop music in trailers. This has gone on long enough.

Highlights include a dope-looking abandoned mall, complete with a recreation of the photo booth scene with Riley from Last of Us's expansion, Left Behind. We also got some clearer shots of shaggy, gun-toting, post apocalyptic Nick Offerman as Bill, which is always welcome.

I've saved the best for last though: that's right, beloved character actor Scott Shepherd is here! You may remember him from such performances as the doomed romantic, Cardinal Dussolier in The Young Pope and dirty cop-turned-private security Harris James from season 3 of True Detective.

Character actor Scott Shepherd and some tough customers walking through the snow while holding guns. — The man of the hour. (Image credit: HBO, Naughty Dog)

Shepherd has yet to show up in The Last of Us' IMDB credits at the time of writing, but you could never sneak him past a true Shep-head⁠ like me—that's him almost chopping Ellie's face in half with a cleaver and sauntering about with some armed men in the snow.

All-in-all, it looks pretty good! We still seem to be at the beginning of the great wave of videogame streaming show adaptations if all those deals and announcements are to be believed, and so far Netflix's Witcher is the only one to really hook me. Maybe HBO can make some magic happen with a prestige show based on that most prestige show of videogames⁠—they've certainly got a great cast for it. HBO's The Last of Us premiers January 15.

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.