The Last of Us beats House of the Dragon viewership on HBO

The Last of Us has been one of the most popular shows of the year – so popular in fact, that it’s beaten out another HBO juggernaut: House of the Dragon.

The Last of Us is continuing to be one of the best franchises out there, with two stellar games, comics, and now an amazing first season of an HBO show. You can check out our review for the finale here, but spoiler alert: it’s great.

Viewership appeared to be going up and up every week for the series, with the finale being its most-watched episode yet.

Because of this, the HBO show has become one of the most-watched series on the platform. In fact, it’s even beaten out another major hit on the channel, that being prequel series House of the Dragon.

The Last of Us finale pushes it over House of the Dragon

Sunday’s Last of Us finale episode averaged 8.2 million viewers across all platforms for HBO, which was slightly more than the previous week’s 8.1 million. Not only that, but the 8.2 million viewers for Sunday’s finale is 74.5% higher than the 4.7 million who watched the first episode in January.

The Last of Us’ first six episodes averaged 30.4 million viewers since the January 15 premiere, with the debut episode being close to 40 million viewers, according to HBO.

This ultimately means that the show is bigger than previous HBO juggernaut House of the Dragon, the prequel series based on Game of Thrones. That show gained 29 million cross-platform viewers over the course of its run in 2022, which was also a massive feat at the time.

However, The Last of Us has not been able to beat Game of Thrones itself yet, as that series averaged at 44 million viewers over its run in 2019. Though comparisons may be hard when Game of Thrones finished a year before HBO Max launched, and was much more reliant on the cable channel, DVDs, and replays.

Meanwhile, a large majority of The Last of Us’ audience watched on HBO Max, whereas only 12% watched from the cable channel – not including during the Super Bowl Sunday, where the episode was streamed two days early.

But disregarding technicalities, it’s clear that The Last of Us is one of the biggest shows of HBO’s history, and may Season 2 be just as popular.

The Last of Us Season 1 is now available to stream in its entirety. You can check out the rest of our coverage here and find out more about Season 2 here.