Excuse me while I run down the street screaming; this is just terrifying.
Naughty Dog’s new IP, The last of Us, isn’t a zombie game as such and is actually based on something called the Cordyceps Fungus jumping species barriers.
Cordyceps is apparently real and what it does is that it infects ants and other insects and anthropods and starts growing in their brain. It then takes over the brain and starts controlling them and making them move and do certain things to ensure the survival of the fungus with little to no care about what happens to the host.
It literally takes over their bodies and uses them like a robot, but it gets worse. It continues to grow sometimes and then sprouts out of the hosts body turning it into some terrifying mutated remotely controlled zombie robot.
Don’t believe me.. well then here is a picture of a Hawkmoth
Pretty isn’t it… and now here is a picture of a Hawkmoth infected with Cordyceps fungi.
That terrifying transformation physically and mentally is what inspired Naughty Dog to create The Last of Us which they are at pains to point out isn’t a zombie horror game and is rather an adventure story of the “Father and daughter like bond” between Joel and Ellie.
Ellie was born during the infection and doesn’t know life without it while Joel see’s Ellie as his way of getting redemption for his behaviour.
What The Last of Us isn’t is a monster story and as the developers themselves stated
If the game was about the monsters, we would have not showed them,
And lastly, they haven’t yet decided if there will be a co-op element to the game and we don’t know which character you will get to play.
Which if I put that through my developer translator means, there will be co-op and you will get to choose which character to play the game as. And don’t panic if you don’t have friends you can just play the game twice, once as each character and experience a different story both times.
That last paragraph was purely my own guessing and is not based in any knowledge or facts…
Last Updated: December 14, 2011
