In The Last of Us, people can get infected not only by getting bitten by a cordycep, but also by breathing in poisonous spores that the mushroom zombies emit. With the upcoming series though, it looks like there will be a change.
Neil Druckmann tells Collider that the series will be swapping out the spores for tendrils. He says, “The game had spores in the air and people had to wear gas masks, and we decided, early on, that we didn’t wanna do that for the show. Eventually, those conversations led us to these tendrils.”
We don’t know why they decided to change that specific element for the show, but I can imagine that watching tendrils creep over people is more visually arresting than people wearing gas masks in slightly cloudy atmospheres.
If we’re also going to be visiting some heavily infected areas, I think logic would have dictated that the characters would be wearing gas masks. So at least with the tendrils, we can really see everyone’s faces when they’re in the middle of danger.
I’m sure there are already a lot of The Last of Us purists who are whining about the change online, but as long as Druckmann himself is good for the change, I think we can trust his judgement.
We don’t know what else could be changed for the show, but I am eager to get caught off guard with changes as long as the core themes of the material are still there.
Catch The Last of Us when it premieres on HBO Max on Jan. 16.
