The Last of Us

[Ed. note: The rest of this piece contains incrementally increasing spoilers for The Last of Us (2013).] pedro pascal crouching, with bella ramsey at his ...

In the final act of The Last of Us (2013), Joel and an unconscious Ellie arrive in Salt Lake City following many brutal adventures, and Ellie is immediately taken in for treatment. Whether the ending of The Last of Us is a true twist ending is arguable. And The Last of Us has plenty of child death to go around (and not just the horrific one in its first episode). But it is an ending that firmly recontextualizes the kind of story that The Last of Us is. The ending of The Last Of Us is not ambiguous in its contents, containing a crystal clear succession of events and motivations — and at the same time, it leaves room for every player to form their own opinion on it. If you were within five yards of a video game in 2013, you may have gotten the sense that The Last of Us tells a story whose ending spawned significant debate.

With The Last of Us, HBO is tapping the actors behind two of Game of Thrones' most beloved side characters to helm a big-budget video game adaption.

Joining him as Ellie is Bella Ramsey, who has a special place in the hearts of Thrones fans for their iconic performance as Lyanna Mormont. The first game (which this season of HBO's adaptation will cover) is set in a post-apocalypse United States. The Last of Us began as a video game series developed by Naughty Dog. Ellie, or "cargo" as Joel describes her, was bitten by a Clicker, but for some reason didn't turn into one. The nine-episode season of The Last of Us is streaming on First released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013, it got a sequel with The Last of Us Part II in 2020.

Whether or not you've played the hit PlayStation game, this Pedro Pascal-starring post-apocalyptic drama is one of 2023's best new series.

Indeed, one of the thrills of the television show is its attention to detail in its rendering of a decaying planet, and also its appreciation for the little things that make persisting and persevering in such difficult times worth it. [Sarah Ward](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/author/sarah-ward/) To be among the last of humanity should mean cherishing everything you can while you can, and with who you can, and this stellar game adaption wholeheartedly understands that. [Terminator: Dark Fate](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/event/terminator-dark-fate-3)) and Sarah try to outdrive the sprawling infection, only to learn swiftly, brutally and heartbreakingly how the earth's population responds when a mass-extinction event is upon them. That isn't the game or this first season's narrative, though, which then finds Joel with the resourceful Tess (Anna Torv, [Mindhunter](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/arts-entertainment/film-tv/mindhunter-cancelled)) in Boston's quarantine zone, making plans to go looking for the absent Tommy. As everything about pandemics, contagions and diseases that upend the world order now does, The Last of Us feels steeped in stone-cold reality as well, as spearheaded by a co-creator, executive producer, writer and director who has already turned an IRL doomsday into stunning television with [Chernobyl](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/arts-entertainment/film-tv/hbo-chernobyl). Many will come to The Last of Us' week-by-week instalments having mashed buttons directing Joel and Ellie through their mission, but familiarity with the game is far from a pre-requisite for being whisked away by the series. The best example that springs to mind during The Last of Us is [Station Eleven](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/arts-entertainment/film-tv/station-eleven-best-thing-to-watch-about-surviving-a-pandemic), however, which is the heartiest of compliments given how thoughtful, smart, empathetic and textured that 2021–22 series proved. As a show, The Last of Us builds in backstories for some game characters only seen or spoken about. That creative force is Craig Mazin, teaming up with Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog, who also wrote and directed The Last of Us games. In this game-to-TV adaptation, he plays Joel, dad to teenager Sarah (Nico Parker, [The Third Day](https://concreteplayground.com/brisbane/arts-entertainment/film-tv/must-binge-hbo-miniseries-the-third-day-dives-into-a-creepy-islands-unsettling-secrets)), but consumed by grief and loss after what starts as an ordinary day, and his birthday, changes everything for everyone. Starting to watch The Last of Us, or even merely describing it, is an instant exercise in déjà vu.

An already engrossing story becomes perfect fodder for a TV show. You've played the game, now you can watch the series. Naughty Dog's beloved PlayStation video ...

But definitely, I don't see this as something that runs on and on and on. Naughty Dog's beloved PlayStation video game series The Last of Us has been adapted into a TV show. And that, in and of itself, is remarkably rare in games. It's an open-and-shut case: this is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games. [BINGE](https://www.finder.com.au/internet-tv/binge) looks to streamline the various movies and TV shows across the broader Foxtel bundles into a service focused on entertainment. The first season follows only the first of the two The Last of Us games and is also the considerably shorter of the two games. Is The Last of Us TV show any good? The Last of Us season 1 will follow in the footsteps of the game, but won't complete the full story. The Last of Us preview How to watch The Last of Us TV show in Australia The Last of Us is HBO ( Where to watch The Last of Us online in Australia

Pedro Pascal is Joel<p> Game of Thrones/The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal stars. 20 Images. Bella Ramsey as Ellie<p> Game of Thrones' Bella Ramsey plays Ellie ...

Though the trailers have given us a glimpse that much of the premise will follow along with the original game, chances are there are going to be a lot of shake ups along the way. In the The Last of Us: American Dreams prequel comic, we see that Ellie and her friend Riley were captured by the Fireflies, and the latter worked hard to join the group only to die after being infected through a bite. The Last of Us is based in a post-apocalyptic world where a mutation of the cordyceps fungus broke out and decimated the population. In the beginning, the Fireflies not only wanted to end FEDRA’s violent rule and return to a more democratic form of government, they were also a primary group actively searching for a cure. One major teaser dropped in The Last of Us trailers has been the introduction of the Fireflies, a major rebellious faction in the games that just about every character is tied to in some way or another. After the 2011 release of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us game, it didn’t take long for the concept to dip its toe in the world of the multimedia franchise.

Neil Druckmann, the writer of 2013's The Last of Us and now co-writer on the HBO television series of the same name, drew much of his story inspiration from ...

(As in Children of Men, which is set in London, there’s a shade of the IRA in this movement.) FEDRA’s largest crime, however, appears to be its use of military might in controlling the population. (We're not sure what the implication here might be—perhaps FEDRA cares only about control and prevention, rather than the more noble pursuit of change.) What makes the Firefly politics confusing, however, is their cause for revolution. In the video game, the Fireflies seek to restore pre-pandemic governance. In the video game, he launched terror attacks against military targets in Denver.) The method is bombing and political violence—attacks on guard posts and armored patrols. In the game, that resistance comes by means of the Fireflies, rebels who oppose the military leadership through widespread bombings and attacks on military targets. (Though, primarily for the male protagonist.) In fact, Children of Men is such dominating influence on the aesthetics, tone, and central narrative of The Last of Us, the core character relationship in each is the same: an older man and a younger woman, the former having to shepherd the latter, who represents the “cure,” through a collapsing world. James novel](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307275434), which is set in a dystopian Europe and follows society’s gradual collapse in the face of mass infertility. [apparently walked out of a movie theater in 2006](https://venturebeat.com/games/naughty-dogs-neil-druckmann-on-the-inspirations-for-the-last-of-us/) wandering why video games couldn’t do what he had just seen.

'The Last of Us' set a gold standard for video-game storytelling. The adaptation's premiere makes it clear HBO doesn't want to screw that up.

She also learns that Marlene does not like being called a terrorist, particularly when she knows she’s working for a greater purpose and Ellie is essential to the cause. Meanwhile, Joel and Tess plot payback on the battery dealer who ripped them off, a pursuit that eventually brings them to Firefly headquarters, or what’s left of it. These include, of course, FEDRA soldiers, including Joel’s painkiller customer, who seems willing to bargain with them for their escape until Ellie stabs him before he can see she tests positive for infection, after which Joel murders him with his bare fists (after a brief flashback to Sarah) as Tess and Ellie look on. But that doesn’t get in the way of her expressing her resentment with defiant sarcasm. After Sarah joins Joel and Tommy in a pick-up with a quarter tank of gas, the three speed across the outskirts of Austin only to find the highway choked with traffic and the fields filled with soldiers. There’s kindness in the way the soldier tells the girl, “What if I told you that after we gave you some medicine, we’re going to find you your favorite food to eat?” but it’s a lie. When Joel and Sarah encounter a soldier, it quickly becomes apparent he’s going to kill them, presumably acting on orders to take extreme measures to contain the spread of the infection. When Tess finds herself in the middle of a FEDRA-Firefly street fight, she does her best not to get involved. The series begins in a slightly different place, opening with a scene set at the taping of a talk show in 1968 in which a smug interviewer talks to two scientists. (Could the sirens she’s been hearing all day have something to do with it?) And she’s helpful with the Adlers, the family next door with the nice dog and a senile, wheelchair-bound mother named Connie who never talks. [PlayStation 3 game in the summer of 2013](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-last-of-us-hbo-adaptation-review-non-gamers.html), The Last of Us drew breathless praise from reviewers, but that’s not particularly unusual. But the show also feels like its own creation, in large part because the series, and its well-chosen cast, emphasize the emotions at the heart of the game, including an interest in what place morality has in a brutal postapocalyptic world and a sense that it is connections between people that make life meaningful, even when surrounded by monsters.

We leap ahead to 2003 where we meet Sarah Miller (Nico Parker) and her father, Joel (Pedro Pascal). The single dad lives with his daughter in the outskirts of ...

Still, this is largely all stage-setting and the meat of the story is still to come. He traded pills to a FEDRA soldier in return for the promise of a truck (minus the battery). The argument is interrupted by a bomb blast that knocks the walls in and knocks out Robert’s men. Tess and Joel gather intel on where their battery is and go to find it, eventually coming to the secret Firefly base where Ellie is being held. Nervous and unconvinced, they decide to let her live and move on into the night before FEDRA can catch up with them. All of this is conveyed in a talk show in 1960, and essentially spells out exactly what’s about to come in the story proper. We also meet members of the Fireflies, a revolutionary group that’s been carrying out bombings and other attacks across the QZ. The soldier checks in with his commanding officer and is told to shoot to kill, which he does, wounding Joel and killing Sarah. She visits their elderly neighbors (where we see the first signs of the infection taking hold, possibly thanks to corrupted biscuits) and when Joel returns from work—late, without a cake—they watch a movie together and she falls asleep on the couch. The game came out in 2013, the show in 2023. It’s his birthday but he’s off to a long day on the job as a contractor with his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). Just the end of the world.

We get to know Sarah (and the pandemic) a bit more in episode 1 of the show than we do in the game.

That turns out to not be the case, but Joel absent-mindedly tossing the kid’s body into a fire shows how inured he is to the violence and chaos of his world, and how much growth he’ll have to do to become the man players know he becomes by the end of the game (and this first season). I knew that Bella Ramsey had been cast to play Ellie, but when I saw the little girl at the start of the flash forward — wearing a maroon shirt not dissimilar from the one Ellie is often pictured in — I thought maybe we were seeing a younger Ellie. - The game left it ambiguous, but strongly hinted that Joel and Tess used to be romantically involved. But the soldier isn’t so charitable to his dealer, and is determined to turn the three in. Joel snaps and beats the soldier to death with his bare hands. The Fireflies are a resistance group against the militarization of quarantine zones. The child is infected, and the militarized police force opts for euthanization. That scene is mirrored in the show, but even before that, Joel talks about how he barely wants to share a construction job with Tommy, and isn’t interested in anyone else’s help. All the while, Sarah attends school, and later seeks out a watch repair shop; she wants to fix an old watch as a gift for her dad. The brothers return right on time to whisk Sarah to safety after she wakes up in the night to find nobody home and the neighbors’ place in disarray. In the game, the original performance of this scene by Troy Baker laid the groundwork for the game’s tone. But first, we get to learn about the nature of the pandemic.

HBO's super-sized series premiere saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) navigate trauma and find new purpose in Ellie (Bella Ramsey), plus some video-game callbacks.

People don’t love that sequence because it’s two minutes of CGI forming different shapes; they love it because it’s two minutes of CGI telling a story of sorts by establishing the geography of the series as a whole and of individual episodes, changing periodically to introduce new spots on the map or prepare us to return to little-visited places like The Pyke. While the idea of the spores rising into something resembling a city — i.e., a metaphor for how the world as we know it has been consumed by the mushrooms — is clever, it’s still ultimately just a bunch of shapes, and not interesting enough to go on for as long as it does. And we discover that Marlene needs Ellie to get to her other Fireflies out west because Ellie is somehow immune to the infection. Ellie is not as in command of the situation as Tess was, but we also quickly see that she is not afraid of being shackled to a wall by armed people who won’t explain why they want her. Then purpose arrives in the form of Ellie, a girl close in age to Sarah who needs passage out of the city. He is emotionally closed-off and efficiently brutal, and when his new charge Ellie is threatened by a soldier late in the episode, he has a PTSD flashback to Sarah’s death and turns absolutely savage in the way he beats on this man. [zombies](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/zombies/), though we do get the disgusting imagery of a dead body absorbed into a wall of fungus when Joel and the others traverse an underground tunnel late in the hour. (We are introduced to her surrounded by armed men after a beating, yet it is clear that she is in command of the room the entire time, and would likely have found a way out of her predicament even if a conveniently-timed Firefly bomb hadn’t given her an escape route.) He is existing rather than living, haunted by the loss of his daughter even more than the loss of everything else he knew, with few goals beyond getting through the next day. Before we get to that violent escape from Boston, we first have to establish the state of America 20 years after the zombie uprising. So I’ll be discussing this episode, and all the ones to come, solely on the basis of how it works as a television show. But before that, we have to watch civilization fall in the way it tends to in so many dystopian shows and movies. Instead, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are using those scenes to establish emotional stakes for Joel, and to make us deeply feel at least some of the pain he experiences when Sarah is shot by a panicked soldier on the night the world is wrecked.

We zip forward to 2003, ten years before the opening of the game, and get a really nice sequence with Joel (Pedro Pascal), his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and ...

In this case, the writers and producers had to condense a 15-hour game into a 10-hour season of television. It doesn’t always work out (many movie adaptations of video games aren’t exactly great), but things can’t stay always precisely the same as they were in the source. Deviating from Joel and Ellie’s story to tell another one in this universe — something that wouldn’t be possible for the game to do — is an exciting change. I enjoyed the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie, which is nothing like any of the games, and I’m interested to see how the Gran Turismo film shakes out, given that it’s about someone who’s very skilled at those games becoming a real-life racing driver. In the same way, a movie that adapted any of the core Mario games exactly would quickly fall flat. We get to see some of what Sarah’s day-to-day existence is like in the hours before the outbreak occurs. Changing how the infection spreads from spores to fungus, for instance, means that the actors don’t have to wear masks in some scenes. They hit the story beats they needed to while changing things up enough to surprise fans of the game and, at least in some places, make the narrative work better in another medium. Things that work in a novel may not in a film, and retelling a game beat-for-beat in a TV show doesn’t make a lot of sense. The cold open is a scene from a ‘60s talk show, which is immediately a new twist. Thanks in part to some of the different paths it takes, HBO’s adaptation of the 2013 game is off to a stellar start. Even when it’s a game that’s as cinematic as The Last of Us.

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey lead this white-knuckle adaptation of the survival-horror gaming classic. Plus: Maternal is a fast-paced and stressful new ...

The scheming mayor’s young ward, Atari, flies to the island in search of his pet, and falls in with a canine pack voiced by the likes of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and Bill Murray. The second of three shaming films by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein reaches the outbreak of war and unambiguous news of Nazi atrocities against European Jews. This new series of the compelling documentary strand was filmed last spring but even then – as paramedics respond to cardiac arrests, epileptic seizures and nasty falls – waiting times were stretching out alarmingly. This catchup revisits the venue a year later to see how Covid affected its attempt to attract a new clientele and balance the books. Last February, the BBC aired a charming documentary about a struggling Clacton working men’s club, which was attempting to modernise thanks to the proprietor’s daughters. It’s essentially a post-apocalyptic drama, but thanks to its origins, the story has real white-knuckle jeopardy.

It has been described as "comfortably the best adaptation of a video game ever made" that has been able to "break the curse" on gaming-TV crossovers.

"Through Ellie, we see its wonder. "Through Joel, we feel the heartbreak of this world," its chief television critic said. "The design is stunning: vistas of deserted, bombed out metropolises are matched by sprawling, Western inflected, shots of rural America." All this to an audience who may not traditionally engage with games. [there's some stand out acting in the series](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/11/the-last-of-us-tv-finally-has-the-perfect-video-game-adaptation) acknowledging "it's a bold statement to make" but episode three "might well be one of the TV episodes of 2023". [gave it four stars, saying](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-last-of-us-review-pedro-pascal-hbo-b2258847.html) it's "undoubtedly a new landmark in the seemingly impossible task of adapting video games".

HBO's post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us arrives, The Case I Can't Forget returns for a new run, and the always excellent Rory Kinnear stars in ...

Please review their details and accept them to load the content. A highlight is the new penthouse. He will call it The Bank of Dave. HBO's post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us arrives, The Case I Can't Forget returns for a new run, and the always excellent Rory Kinnear stars in The Bank of Dave . Inside they discover an exhausted wife who, despite her own physical problems, has been trying to save her husband's life. This gives Dave an idea. and depend on each other for survival. First there is the noise from tube lines that requires a rethink on the build and then, just weeks from opening, unprecedented levels of rainfall in central London cause the basement to flood and destroy much of what her team have been working towards. With the megabuild shell nearing completion, the hotel turns its attention to the interiors, employing some of the world’s top designers and craftsmen to meet the expectations of their well-heeled guests. Then he visits a Japanese-inspired micro-home in London and takes an inspiration trip to Israel to see one of the most unusual, hand-built homes he has ever seen. There she tries to help her brother, Nicky, convince their father, to put Ruth in a nursing home and face the end of their marriage. We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity.

The "zombie virus" introduced in HBO's The Last of Us is unlike any you've ever seen before...

What’s so terrifying about this infection is that while we typically think of zombies as reanimated corpses that have been killed and then brought back to life by some sort of virus, the Cordyceps fungus technically keeps the host alive through this entire process, even though they aren’t conscious or in control. This stage of Cordyceps can occur anywhere between two weeks to a year after infection as the fungus takes further control over the host’s body. The next stage of infection is the Stalker, categorized by fungal plates that have begun to grow over the eyes. With that said, let’s dive into the different stages of infection we could see in this season of The Last of Us. Even though a newspaper found in the prologue of the game shows that the FDA tried to slow the spread by issuing food recalls, the incubation rate is so fast that hospitals quickly became overwhelmed at the onset of the outbreak. In this world, the Cordyceps fungus has mutated to infect the brains of humans, turning them into violent and bloodthirsty creatures intent on spreading the fungus as widely as possible.

The zombie apocalypse depicted in the popular video game series and newly adapted HBO series “The Last of Us” derives from a mutation to a type of fungus ...

The zombie apocalypse depicted in the popular video game series and newly adapted HBO series “The Last of Us” derives from a mutation to a type of fungus called cordyceps. This should probably come as no surprise, though: Unlike in the games and show, cordyceps, as we currently know it, will not turn you into a zombie. Cordyceps is real, and some

The opening scene shows two epidemiologists speaking on a talk show in 1968, speculating about significant viral threats to human existence. One says viruses ...

We wanted to give us much reality as we could because the realer that is, the more we connect to the characters that are in that space playing around.” The game had spores in the air and people had to wear gas masks, and we decided, early on, that we didn’t want to do that for the show,” he said. Druckmann added: “With the more recently infected, we had a lot of conversation about what that vector could look like because there are certain things from the game that we took away. Mazin continued that the audience is more knowledgeable about pandemics these days than they were when the game first came out in 2013. This scene is pivotal to explaining how the outbreak in The Last of Us begins. The disease that wipes out most of humanity in The Last of Us is a fungus—a mutated microorganism known as cordyceps, which actually does exist in real life, but it can’t infect humans. “There’s a fungus that infects insects, it gets inside an ant, travels through its circulatory system to the ant’s brain and then floods it with hallucinogens, thus bending the ant’s mind to its will. The airborne spores that required gas masks to navigate are gone and instead, we have tendrils (which, by the way, will make your skin crawl from a visual perspective), potentially given the real-life COVID pandemic wherein a mask helps slows transmission. “So, if that happens—” the talk show host begins. [devour its host](https://stylecaster.com/watch-the-walking-dead-online-free/) from within replacing, the ant’s flesh with its own, but it doesn’t let its victim die. How did The Last of Us outbreak start? But in the end, we always win,” he explains, adding that fungus will be humanity’s undoing “in the most dire terms” and alludes to how it might begin.

The Cordyceps brain infection, as it would come to be known, infected and/or killed roughly 60% of the population just a short time later. The amount who ...

The Last of Us is available on HBO in US. So, we challenged ourselves to come up with an interesting new way for the fungus to spread." Then after a year has passed, the fungus scars the host and blinds them completely, forcing them to use a new, primitive method of echolocation to find their way around. Within two weeks of infection, the host begins to lose their sight as a fungal growth corrupts their visual cortex. Those are the clickers who you're going to see a lot of this season. That's where we see the host lose their higher brain function, leaving behind those aggressive, irrational, zombie-like people we see at the start of the show and game. The Cordyceps brain infection, as it would come to be known, infected and/or killed roughly 60% of the population just a short time later. [The Last of Us](https://www.digitalspy.com/last-of-us/) isn't exactly [your standard zombie thriller](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a42429477/last-of-us-review-tv/), and that's clear from the beginning of the very first episode. How do we know 60% of the population were lost so quickly? In 1968, there was no evidence that this same process could affect humans because the human body is simply too warm for these strains of fungi to survive in. Humans now live in closed-off areas where guards check anyone coming in to see if they've been infected by the outbreak. [The Last of Us](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a42141245/the-last-of-us-first-trailer/) spoilers follow.

Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey star in a wild new survival / horror series set to become one of 2023's biggest drawcards.

It all makes The Last of Us a wild ride from the couch, but without expecting you to leave your intelligence at the door. There were times I was reminded of characters from Planet of the Apes wandering onto ruins of fallen cities (spoiler alert?). Craig Mazin, who also directs a long opening episode, brings nuance to early scenes in 2003, subtly setting the unsettling before all hell breaks loose. Ellie, it seems, may just have the answer to wiping out the cordyceps once and for all. With Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) it’s a fight for survival amid public panic, army, fighter jets and seemingly-normal folk behaving zombie-like in the streets. By the time the series has flashed forward to 2023 America (and presumably the world as we know it) has been overrun -no longer just the stuff of Hollywood movies, it seems.

Though based on the 2013 video game series by PlayStation Studio, Naughty Dog, it's immediately clear that the show, written by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil ...

The two make a plan to find Robert and confront him in order to find out where the battery ended up. In the chaos, the guard points his rifle at Ellie, and Joel jumps in between them, unarmed, to try and talk him down. - There’s a clear shot of dust in the light in the first scene in Joel’s apartment. Fortunately, as it turns out, the guard is the one Joel provided pills to earlier in the episode. Tess escapes to see that a FEDRA vehicle has been bombed, and that a sniper is on a nearby rooftop, firing on FEDRA soldiers. A guard notices the child, and rushes to assist as he collapses. As Joel tries to explain that neither of them are infected, the soldier radios for instructions on how to handle the situation. Just as the monster is about to pounce, it’s shot by a soldier, who then keeps Joel and Sarah at gunpoint. As Sarah gets outside, Joel and Tommy careen onto the scene in their pickup truck, and Joel kills the infected woman with a wrench, without hesitation. Joel is painted as being forgetful and preoccupied with his work and his need to keep his family afloat, though has a clear lighthearted side, and is very open to playfully jesting with Sarah and Tommy. Post title credits, the episode then jumps ahead to a suburb of Texas in 2003, where single father Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), a building contractor, and his teenage daughter Sarah (Nico Parker), are starting their day. One of the guests begins to talk about the very real concept of parasitic fungi – organisms that infect, kill, and control the body of their host to further spread their existence.

To badly bastardise the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Spores, spores everywhere and not a drop of a vaccine. That's the main issue facing the human race ...

[Comicbook.com](https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-last-of-us-spores-changed-games-tv-show-adaptation/): “In the game, there are these [parts] where you encounter spores and you need to put a gas mask on. [Collider](https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-craig-mazin-neil-druckmann-interview/): “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. [The Last Of Us](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelastofus/comments/105251c/hbo_series_will_not_include_spores/) Reddit page (this very subject kicked off a 1,200+ post discussion about it) one person commented: “I did find the spores to be a really unique aspect of the cordyceps fungi, and the overall infected in the universe. The writer and creative direction for The Last Of Us game, Neil Druckmann, told To badly bastardise the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Spores, spores everywhere and not a drop of a vaccine. If you breathed in infected air of those suffering, there’s a good chance you would catch it too.

Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann was working on it to make sure it was faithful to the game. Chernobyl's Craig Mazin was writing it. It was on HBO. And when early ...

Fanboys made a big deal out of a quote where she said she was told not to play the game, implying that would make her performance unfaithful. While everyone remembers the breakout performance she gave in a few scenes as young Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, she was a somewhat unknown quantity here. Hell, even one of the same actresses shows up to play the same role she had a decade ago (Marlene). HBO, even going through massive cutbacks in the David Zaslav era, has clearly unleashed the floodgates to give The Last of Us whatever budget it needs. Even getting my hopes way, way up ahead of the premiere of The Last of Us last night, even counting the series as one of my favorites in video game history, it actually exceeded my expectations. Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann was working on it to make sure it was faithful to the game.

In its first 25 minutes, the HBO adaptation of 'The Last of Us' achieves an energy the game longed to emulate.

For those with a strong attachment to the original work, the last decade was essentially building up to this moment, and what transpires in the TV adaptation is something close to a (The remake with more modern tech, released last fall, is only somewhat better.) Since this is a game, it’s also a sequence with a fail state. It’s really something to see a prestige TV show literally translate a scene from a game that was, in its own way, already emulating a prestige TV show. The plane crash, for example, is an invention for the show; in the video game, Sarah and Joel are knocked out when another car slams into theirs. The HBO remake of the outbreak sequence is striking in how it fully realizes what the original work was simulating. Playing the game, you can feel The Last of Us strain to use its elemental tools to achieve the kind of cinematic storytelling it’s going for, even as it’s ultimately successful. The camera assumes a view from the back seat, mimicking Sarah’s perspective as the family tries to get out of Dodge. (Though one could possibly argue Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, which does a ton of world-building through background elements that the camera often glides by, came quite close.) The very first character you control is Sarah, whom you guide through a splendid sequence that evokes the feeling of being a child alone at home. John Hannah plays the more portentous of the duo, laying out the mechanics of what will eventually drive the apocalypse in this universe: mind-controlling fungus, previously a phenomenon contained to the insect world, pushed by climate change to evolve such that it makes the jump into human beings. As someone long familiar with the source material, the choice is exciting: the HBO version places a premium on leaving room to breathe. This wasn’t necessarily the case in the source material. However, back in 2013, the game was still doing its best with the tools it had within the context of its medium.

The zombifying fungal infection that wiped out humanity in The Last of Us is based on a very real set of parasitic fungi that hijack insects and compel them ...

Though not confirmed, fans widely [expect](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/01/14/will-naughty-dogs-next-game-be-the-last-of-us-part-3/?sh=3d9fa9907d0f) Naughty Dog will announce a third title in the game’s main series in the future and Druckmann has openly stated he feels there is “more story to tell.” [said](https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-cordyceps-infection-explained-neil-druckmann-craig-mazin-comments/) was taken to avoid actors having to wear obstructive gas masks for large portions of the show. This is a major departure from what happens in nature, where zombie fungi actually steer well clear of the brain and manipulate behavior with chemical signals, Hughes said. This discovery was made fairly recently and after the first game had been released. Presently, details are scarce, though a small amount of Araújo said it was a “shame” fungal spores have been removed from the show, a decision showmakers Since its release it has been remastered, remade and spawned a sequel, The Last of Us Part II. Though based on a game, viewers don’t need to have [played the game](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/01/15/do-you-need-to-have-played-the-last-of-us-to-watch-the-hbo-show/?sh=3fba09355f95) in order to follow or appreciate the show and it [is](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/01/10/hbos-the-last-of-us-review/) reportedly a [faithful adaptation](https://www.theverge.com/23550842/hbo-the-last-of-us-neil-druckmann-craig-mazin-interview), albeit with some significant differences. [concept art](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-last-of-us-factions-multiplayer-gets-new-concept-art/1100-6510286/) has been released. The first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us was released on Sunday. The first game, released in 2013 by studio Naughty Dog, is one of the most De Bekker said it was great the infected are shown as living beings—rather than the less natural “undead” commonly deployed in the zombie genre—but that their aggressive behavior is not in line with what infected insects do.

SPOILER ALERT for TLOU Part I and Part II ! Only watch if you've played the games. Hope you enjoy! Like and comment below what you think of the show so far!

Players on the most expensive PS+ tier will be able to download the game in full and then play for up to two hours before their trial runs out, at which point ...

It does, however, smartly enhance the original’s combat through A.I. It doesn’t take liberties to completely reshape the experience and nor should it. [We scored it a 9/10 in our review](https://press-start.com.au/reviews/ps5-reviews/2022/09/01/the-last-of-us-part-1-review-makes-every-shot-count/), saying “The Last of Us Part I is, for all intents and purposes, the same The Last of Us that you know.

This desperately moving drama set in a zombie-ravaged US is a phenomenal blend of horror and heart, with a cast that could not be more perfect.

Yet it manages to find humanity in the ruins – and that makes it worth the hardship. It is a gorgeous detour into the wider world; as many critics have said already, it might be one of the finest episodes of TV you will see this year. The fact that it manages to resist a sentimental approach and yet still finds such soul is a real achievement. What is left of society is in the hands of an authoritarian military regime fighting rebel groups classed as terrorists and it is bleak as hell. The Last of Us is violent and maudlin. That is the terrifying premise of The Last of Us (Sky Atlantic), another post-apocalyptic prestige drama in a TV landscape that, for understandable reasons, is stuffed with game-over scenarios.

It's early days, but this video-game adaptation about the world being overrun by fungal zombies is expertly done. Newcomers and original gamers will be ...

I want to try to keep comparisons and mentions of the video game to a minimum and treat this as a separate entity – it has to work as a standalone, not just for fans of the game who know what’s coming – but so far, this series has done an amazing job of transporting the characters to screen. They accepted the mission, only to encounter the Fedra soldier Joel had sold pills to earlier in the episode. After Joel smashed their neighbour Mrs Adler’s head in with a spanner, he, Sarah and Tommy tried to escape the area in their pickup truck as all hell broke loose around them. Boston, 2023, and the world is wrecked. We heard about a disturbance in Jakarta on radio – ominous – and learned Joel works in construction – handy. Hello and welcome to The Last of Us episode recaps.

The disease in both “The Last of Us” TV series and game is called the Cordyceps brain infection, and it's caused by the Cordyceps fungus. The TV series smartly ...

It's pretty unlikely, but not impossible, that "The Last of Us"'s Cordyceps brain infection could become real for humans. In "The Last of Us" video game, the virus began to spread in South America before coming to the United States in 2013. The disease in both "The Last of Us" TV series and game is called the Cordyceps brain infection, and it's caused by the Cordyceps fungus. However, he told Fandom, the ants could give it to another animal that could give it to humans. [Wellcome Trust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzGOdJoFsrM) that if this disease was real in humans, it would take scientists about 20 years to find a cure. So in the show, the infected are connected, like real fungus, through tendrils of the fungus. [Fandom](https://www.fandom.com/articles/the-real-world-parasite-behind-the-last-of-us) in an article first published in 2019 that people get fungal diseases all the time. Ahead, we're breaking down "The Last of Us" fungus, its implications for the rest of the game, and if it could happen in real life. In the television series, the fungus spreads in 2003. It became very scary to think that they're all working against us in this unified way, which was a concept that I really liked, that got developed in the show." The infected will start to grow fungus from their head and they will begin to lose their sight. Together, they face dangers from their fellow survivors — who are desperate to do anything to stay alive — and, of course, from the strangely beautiful zombies.