The Last of Us HBO series creator says fans may be upset by the changes: ‘I don’t blame them’

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The second episode of HBO’s The Last of Us series just dropped on the streamer yesterday, and fans are already criticizing the show for changing some things from the games.

The episode, titled “Infected”, recreates many of the early levels from the original game. He sees Joel, Ellie, and Tess sneaking into an overrun town to drop Ellie off with some Firefly rebels. In a diversion from the game, creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin introduced a new way to spread the fungal infection. The infected use tendrils from their bodies and lay a nasty kiss on them, giving them the cordyceps fungus.

In the game, one of the main ways the infection spreads is through airborne spores; the omission of spores from the series has already led some fans to believe that the series is too flexible with its adaptation.

“I learned to expect a backlash when sneezing,” Druckman said in an interview with Variety. “I think it speaks to the kind of fans that we have, who are so protective and love the world and these characters so much that whatever they see as a deviation, without the full context of what that means, they just assume the worse and push I think this addition is worth it It’s actually one of those additions where I’m like, ‘Oh man, I wish we had that for the game. to have thought years ago, because I love him so much.'”

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Mazin added, “It’s fine if people are upset about it, I don’t blame them. Everyone dreams of working on something where the fan engagement is at that level, where people will argue about it. of these things or will feel passionate about them. I sometimes feel, if you just see how it’s going, I think it’s going to be fine. A lot has happened, but there will definitely also be people who will say “You screwed up, and I get it. We definitely won’t make everyone happy, I know that.”

The omission of spores practically makes sense for a live-action adaptation, as the presence of spores would mean Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey would have to wear gas masks for much of the shows’ runtime. However, Mazin insists the show still hasn’t completely wiped out the spores.

“If you listen carefully, the word ‘spores’ comes up,” he said. “I don’t necessarily know if I was going to see spores this time around, but to say our world is devoid of them wouldn’t be accurate. We don’t quite know yet: that’s part of the fun of adapting and leaving those fuzzy edges of the map for our characters to discover as the adventure progresses.”

The Last of Us series is just getting started, so anyone can guess how the rest of the series will live up to the beloved video games. For now, however, the creators seem to know that backlash is expected when adapting one of the greatest games ever made.

Carson Burton is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @carsonsburton.

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