The HBO series “The Last of Us,” based on a cult video game series of the same name by Naughty Dog and much praised by critics and viewers alike, already got off to a flying start at the series opener on January 15 with around 4.7 million viewers on U.S. television alone, which was rewarded with a quick extension for a The Last of Us season 2.
In the meantime, the post-apocalyptic horror drama starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie has been able to increase its ratings week by week with one more episode each, and is now setting a new record with the recently shown eighth episode: More than 8.1 million viewers watched the penultimate episode of the opening season on Sunday night. This means that the format is attracting almost twice as many viewers as it did at the beginning of the series, which otherwise tends to be the other way around.
“The Last of Us” from the two series creators Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”) and Naughty Dog boss and author of the game template Neil Druckmann is thus one of the most successful series of the US channel HBO, which previously set new records with “Game of Thrones” (at that time still without the in-house streaming provider HBO Max) and the spin-off “House of the Dragon”.
According to the latest U.S. streaming charts from Nielsen, the world’s leading ratings measurement provider, the HBO series has already been accessed for more than 1.19 billion minutes across all of the broadcaster’s platforms – including HBO Max – since the series launched in January.
To the upcoming season finale next Sunday evening, March 12, it should come to a further increase. In the meantime, a suitable preview trailer for the ninth episode has been released:
