There are more than a few things in common between Game of Thrones, HBO's generational epic fantasy hit, and The Last of Us, its zombie apocalypse drama that just closed out its second season. Showrunner Craig Mazin has admitted to being "a Thrones fanatic," which you could surely guess if you watched the giant snowbound zombie battle from early this season and thought of the Game of Thrones episode "Hardhome." Plus, the two stars of the show — Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey — both broke out on Game of Thrones, playing Oberyn Martell and Lyanna Mormont.
Mazin serves as co-showrunner on the series with Neil Druckmann, the driving creative force behind The Last of Us video games. Druckmann also seems like a Game of Thrones fan; or at least, he's a fan of the creators. In The Last of Us Part II, just as players take control of lead character Abby, we see her waking up having fallen asleep reading a copy of City of Thieves, a 2008 historical fiction novel about a couple of kids coming of age during the Siege of Leningrad, in the midst of World War II. That book was written by none other than Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff, and Druckmann has acknowledged that it had an influence on The Last of Us games.
That little nod made its way over to the show, where Abby is played by Kaitlyn Dever. As she wakes up in the same way as in the game, we see that she's reading the same book. Or at least, it's meant to be the same book; since the apocalypse happened in the show before City of Thieves was published, the prop that appears in the show is titled Thieves of the City by Ben Davidoff, an obvious play on Benioff's name and novel.
In a more general sense, The Last of Us is continuing an HBO tradition of big, bold, expensive filmmaking. Game of Thrones was one of the first TV shows that felt more like watching a movie; now they're everywhere. The Last of Us is trying to pick up that ball and run with it. It's only natural that there would be some connective tissue between the series.
That said, one thing Game of Thrones did well for most of its run was get out new episodes to fans in a timely manner. There's a third season of The Last of Us on the way, but so far as we can tell, it won't start filming for awhile, which eans we may well not see new episodes until 2027. Before that, we'll see the third season of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, which should be out next year.
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