As far as video game post-apocalypses go, they don’t get much more horrific than the one found inThe Last of Us. Taking place 20 years after the outbreak of the Cordyceps infection,The Last of Ussees the entirety of the United States decimated, with military-run quarantine zones being the only safe haven from infection, and the rest of the nation completely abandoned, leaving nature to take hold of the environment.
The world ofThe Last of Usis a truly terrifying one. Infected lurk around every corner, with some of them having mutated into hulking monsters, and some into lethal predators, all capable of ending a survivor’s life within seconds. If the infected don’t get them, then human raiders probably will, which is where a lot ofThe Last of Usfocuses its runtime. But while the state ofhumanity is a core central theme ofThe Last of Us, it might be time to refocus the attention on the threat that caused such dire circumstances in the first place.
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The Next Last of Us Should Focus Even More on The Infected
The firstLast of Usbalanced its threats expertly. DuringThe Last of Us' now-iconic prologue, players are first introduced to the infected Runners that remain the most common enemy type of the entire series. Within a few hours, players will also run into the bat-like Clickers, the jump-scaring Stalkers, and the intimidating Bloaters, all of which are introduced in incredibly memorable gameplay sequences. But while the infected do get plenty of screen time in the originalLast of Us, human enemies are still a predominant force in both the narrative and the gameplay. Paired with the strong central emotional relationship between Joel and Ellie, humanity’s prevalence inThe Last of Uscan occasionally result in players forgetting about the infected threat altogether.
This becomes much more prevalent inThe Last of Us Part 2. WhileThe Last of Us Part 2features some memorable sequences with the infected, such as the Rat King battle and chase, that threat is pushed aside quite frequently in favor of human foes such as the WLF or Seraphites. On top of that, the infected don’t really play a role inThe Last of Us Part 2’s story, with Ellie and Abby’s cycle of revenge taking center stage. While the firstLast of Usoccasionally used the infected to heighten a story moment or as a reason why characters needed to make certain decisions, they appear more as a general nuisance inThe Last of Us Part 2, coming in occasionally to inconvenience the main characters.
Humanity and its reaction to the apocalypse is an integral aspect ofThe Last of Us, and core relationshipdynamics between Joel and Ellieor Ellie and Abby are what elevate the series beyond most zombie fiction currently out there. But that being said, it might be an interesting change of pace to put the emphasis back on the infected threat, and see just how pivotal it is toThe Last of Us' overarching story and world in general.
The nextLast of Usgame should really showcase just how much of a threatthe Cordyceps infectiontruly is. Instead of just appearing as a background threat again, the infected should take center stage, with the plot revolving around the relationship between them and whatever survivors the game follows. The infected should also be tied closely to the game’s emotional stakes, with them directly affecting the fate of its characters, similar to the big impact they had on Henry and Sam in the first game. That way, the nextLast of Uscan still keep human relationships at its core, but show how the infected directly impact those relationships.
