The reason why the switch occurred between the HBO plot and the game was explained by the creators of ‘The last of Us’
In ‘The Last Of Us’, a game developed by Naughty Dog and released for Playstation in 2013, Joel and Ellie embark on a dangerous mission outside the quarantine zone in order for the girl — who is the only immune human — to contribute for creating a cure for the Cordyceps fungus mutation that infected humans 20 years ago.
In the game, the ‘zombie fungus’ that almost decimated life on Earth, spread across the United States after appearing in South America and from then on, it spread to humans through infected plantations, as announced by the “Texas Herald” newspaper. , dated September 26, 2013, shown in the game.
“The Food and Drug Administration’s investigation of potentially mold-infected crops continues across the country. Initial lists distributed to vendors across the country warned of plantations imported from South America, but this has now been expanded to include Central America and Mexico. Several companies have already volunteered to collect their products from the shelves”, reveals an excerpt from the newspaper.
After vegetables, fruits and greens were contaminated by the fungus, people who ate them ended up going through the stages of infection: Runner, Tracker, Clicker, and if they live long enough, a Puffer Fish, where they not only lose control of their nervous system central, as they begin to act as transmission agents, leading the fungus from one body to another through bites.
In addition, in the game, there are spores, which remain and float in dark and closed spaces, waiting for an unsuspecting human to inhale them and be contaminated, which even causes the characters to wear masks to avoid infections.
However, in the plot of the same name that was adapted for the small screen and received its first episode in January this year by HBO, the fungus does not infect humans through spores, but through tendrils.
what are spores
Spores are small structures produced in large quantities that are responsible for the reproduction not only of fungi, as occurs in ‘The Last of Us’, but also of plants and bacteria, as explained by the website Toda Matéria.
Due to their size and extremely light weight, spores can remain and move in the air (or through the body of other animals) for long periods and distances, until they find suitable environments to germinate.
In addition, in the case of fungi, spores can be mobile or immobile, and in the first case, they have a flagellum and are called zoospores.
Why is the series different?
In HBO’s plot, contagion also begins through food, but the story changes a little, as it is explained that everything begins in Jakarta, Indonesia, through a flour factory, where local employees were the first contaminated.
Even so, Cordyceps can be transmitted through direct contact with the infected, which here have tendrils and not spores. The tendrils have the function of looking for support for the growing plant and in ‘The Last of Us’ they serve to transmit the fungus and connect the host with a huge network of infected.
The change in the way the fungus spreads was explained by Craig Mazinone of those responsible for production, in a chat with ComicBook, where he pointed out the measures that must be adopted to prevent the transmission of viruses through the air, where the use of masks would have to be constant, just as happened with the Covid-19 pandemic. 19.
In the game, there are times when you encounter spores and need to put on a gas mask. In the world we’re creating, if we put spores in the air, it would be pretty clear that they would spread far and wide and everyone would have to wear a mask at all times and most likely everyone would be completely infected by that point.
With that, it was necessary to find a way to transmit the threat that the infected cause to humans, and in an interview given to Collider, Neil Druckmann revealed that the use of tendrils was chosen for this.
These conversations led us to these “tentacles”. So, just thinking about the existence of a passage from one infected person to another and the way the fungus does it, can turn into a network that is interconnected. It got really scary just thinking about them all working against us as a unit, a concept I ended up liking and developed into the series.
Source: Recreio
