Matt and Ross Duffer spoke with The Daily Beast following the success of “Stranger Things” first season, and sang the high praises of both “Silent Hill” and “The Last of Us,” long before the series adaptation was on anyone’s radar. Journalist Melissa Leon correctly assumed that the pair were inspired by the games when looking at the aesthetic of the Upside Down. “How’d you guess?” Matt jokingly asked. “Yes, we do play quite a few video games — have all our lives.” Ross Duffer piggybacked off of his brother’s comment, admitting to the obvious references scattered throughout the show. “That’s the thing: it’s not just ’80s films that inspired us,” he said. “There’s a lot of ‘Silent Hill’ in the Upside Down, which people have noticed.”
Leon then asked the pair if they’d played “The Last of Us,” nothing there was a similarity in “the atmosphere” around the gates to the Upside Down to the post-apocalyptic world of the game. “Yes! Yes, we have, that’s another [inspiration],” said Ross Duffer. “And ‘The Last of Us’ is probably, in terms of storytelling, the best story-driven game I’ve ever played.” Ross Duffer called out the “giant leap in terms of character development” that made “The Last of Us” such a great game, acknowledging that even if only subconsciously, “I’m sure [it] influenced us.” Matt agreed and even mentioned that Neil Druckmann, the creative director at Naughty Dog who developed the game, had tweeted about loving the show.
“The Last of Us” debuts on HBO on January 15, 2023, so we can probably expect comparisons to “Stranger Things” immediately following.