The Last of Us is all set to hit PlayStation 3 on June 14 and Sony just released a new video where the creators explain the origins of the Infected and how the protagonists Joel and Ellie evolve as characters. The Infected are the game's version of zombies.
The video features the game's creative director Neil Druckman and game director Bruce Straley who talk extensively about the intimate relationship between Joel and Ellie and how this impacts the gameplay. The video was uploaded on the PlayStation Blog.
The idea of the Infected enemies stemmed from a documentary on Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus which implants itself in the brain of ants and alters their behavior. The Naughty Dog team envisioned a scenario where this fungus infects humans. The resultant zombie-like foes, who are human beings, prowl the U.S. after a plague nearly drives humanity to extinction. The Infected are slowly mutating and can still see and hunt by sight. However, at some point in the process of mutation, they become Clickers who navigate and hunt by echolocation and sound, the developers explain.
As Polygon notes, "The military has carved out little enclaves of relative safety from the Infected, but these havens are oppressive military states. The young Ellie has never known anything but life inside the military enclaves, and so will exhibit a sense of wonder when out in the ruined human world slowly being reclaimed by nature." Joel takes the survivalist nature here, whose sole focus revolves around the realities of how to get from Point A to Point B.
"How do we show off this relationship? How do we build Joel and Ellie over the course of the game?" - the developers explained that these questions remained at the heart of the development of the game. According to them, Joel is the guy who is "willing to do whatever it takes to survive."
Check out the video below to see what else the The Last of Us developers have to say:
