[Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 3]

Games are the only art form where the player makes the story happen, whether that means saving the princess from the monster in the castle or murdering an entire hospital full of people to save the one person immune to the Cordyceps infestation whose death might lead to a cure. You have to make Joel’s choices to finish the game, whether you agree with them or not. That’s what really hurts.

A huge part of adapting from games to another medium is figuring out what has to shift about the story when it’s no longer designed around somebody playing, and maybe no adaptation understands this challenge better than “The Last of Us.” No amount of load screen homages, lore drops and Easter eggs, or lovingly recreated environments stand in for good storytelling. When “The Last of Us” invents wholly original sequences,...