Developed by Uncharted's Naughty Dog, The Last of Us takes 14 year old Ellie and "ruthless" survivor Joel through a post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh that's been overtaken by nature with scant bits of civilization left. What's the source of humanity's downfall? Fungus, and it's no Princess Toadstool...
The team cited the real life cordyceps fungus featured BBC's nature documentary "Planet Earth" as the inspiration for not only the cause of humanity's collapse, but the game's mushroom "zombies" as well.
In an interview with Game Informer, Last of Us creative director Neil Druckerman and game director Bruce Straley said, "When you heard about what this thing actually does, it's like something out of sci-fi...you have this parasite... and it goes into this insect's mind and alters its state of mind, so it changes its behavior to infect other insects from this species...And for us a light bulb went off...what if this thing jumped to humans? How would it alter our state to propagate itself?"
Players can see the mushroom influence with Last's creatures in a picture Naughty Dog president Evan Wells released on his twitter.
But fungal monsters aren't the only dangers in this new world. Ellie and Joel have other scavengers to worry about as well, and they're none too friendly. Check the trailer to see for yourself.
More information from The Last of Us is expected at this year's E3 in June.