The TV series creators decided to abandon the idea that infection spreads through spores in the air – instead, the infected will use tendrils to latch onto people.
The first episode of The Last of Us TV show is going to release just in a couple of days. While the fans are eagerly waiting for the premiere, the creators of the series share some more details about the upcoming show.
Previously, it was reported that the HBO show will see "some radical changes to the game’s story," while being faithful to the source material. And now, in an interview with Collider. the show co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin revealed one of the changes – the TV series will show us a different way how people get infected.
The co-creators decided to ditch the idea that infection spreads through fungal spores as it was in the game series as they believed it wouldn't be realistic enough.
"We wanted to ground this show in as much science as possible. The game did it pretty darn well, especially for a genre where it would be easy to say, 'Oh, there’s zombies, but the zombies come out of the ground.' Cordyceps is a fascinating concept, and it’s absolutely real. We wanted to push that a little further," Mazin explained.
"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," Druckmann said. "Eventually, those conversations led us to these tendrils. And then, just thinking about how there’s a passage that happens from one infected to another, and like fungus does, it could become a network that is interconnected."
The first mention of the tendrils was found in the early concept art of the first part of The Last of Us, although this idea did not reach the final version of the game. Apparently, back then, the developers planned to have a different species of zombies that could infect others with the help of the tendrils.
You can find the full interview with Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform, our Reddit page, and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.