In a year stacked full of great video games, one that truly stood out was The Last of Us 2. The sequel to The Last of Us set some truly high benchmarks, from the tiny details in level and character design to the unique approach to the game’s narrative, but it’s possible that Naughty Dog may have done its job too well and made one aspect for future sequels much harder.
The idea of a world ravaged by a pandemic is nothing new to the video game world, or the real world for that matter, but what sets The Last of Us apart is its unique approach to the infected enemy types in its world. The Last of Us 2 continued to build and expand on the world built in The Last of Us, with new variants of infected for players to fight. However, this makes Naughty Dog’s job that much harder for any future sequels set in The Last of Us’ world.
For some background, there are several known infected types established so far in The Last of Us games. These enemy types are all grounded in science around the in-game cordyceps brain infection. However, the cordyceps virus is actually based on a real-life fungus that is known to attack and subsume other species, mostly in plants and insects. Naughty Dog has taken this concept and applied it to a virus for people, which resulted in a series of different infected stages in the game. The virus is spread via bites or spores, and seeing spores or overgrown fungus during The Last of Us is a telltale sign that there are infected nearby.
The early infected stages, such as Runners, are more akin to typical zombies. But the next stage, known as Stalkers, is where the cordyceps lore kicks in, as they have more prominent fungal growth, but still appear mostly human. Clickers are the most widely known infected type in The Last of Us, but Naughty Dog managed to make them even deadlier in the sequel with the addition of a ‘bark’ move that allows the creatures to see players even when they aren’t moving. The next step up from Clickers is Bloaters and Shamblers, the heavy-type enemies in The Last of Us 2. Both types have been mutated far beyond recognition by the cordyceps brain infection and which also makes them more dangerous. But beyond these established stages of infected in The Last of Us, no other zombie types have been seen or referred to in the game. With one exception…
Naughty Dog kept one very horrific infected stage under wraps until after The Last of Us 2’s release. While playing as Abby in the second half of the game, players will encounter possibly the hardest boss fight in The Last of Us’history. The creature is known as the Rat King and is a twisted combination of Clickers, Stalkers, and a Bloater that have fused together after decades of underground containment. The Rat King is a singular occurrence in The Last of Us 2, with the explanation being that the creature formed after being trapped there at the beginning of the pandemic.
This explains why more of these infected types aren’t seen as the Rat King was locked underground for 25 years, which is also what allowed it to mutate so far, so it wouldn’t be that common of an occurrence in the natural world. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t more instances of infected like the Rat King lying in wait out in the game world. The question is, after a creature like the Rat King, where can a The Last of Us 2 sequel possibly go from here?
At this point, Naughty Dog has stayed silent on whether another sequel for The Last of Us 2 is happening, but should it go ahead, the studio will have to find new ways to keep the infected enemies interesting. The problem with this is that during The Last of Us 2’s timeline the outbreak has been going on for 25 years, so if there are new infected types out in the world, it would be strange for the main characters to not be aware of them. But there are a couple of ways Naughty Dog could get around this.
Of course, the developer could just choose to introduce a new infected type and find a logical way of explaining why it hasn’t been encountered yet. In The Last of Us 2, Ellie and Dina come across Shamblers for the first time, which is likely because the city of Seattle was a larger outbreak site, hence there are more variations of infections than they would have typically seen in Jackson County.
The Last of Us 3 could also choose to include more fusion types of infected. As the years go by in the game’s timeline, it makes sense that the infected would continue to evolve as well. Picturing odd combinations of stages fused together, like Stalkers and Shamblers, could be the next logical step in enemy variants for another sequel. Each infected stage also tends to have its own individual strengths and weaknesses, such as Clickers being blind or Bloaters’ weakness to fire. So mixing up the different skills of each enemy could build out a new range of infected types for players to deal with.
TV shows, like The Walking Dead, have dealt with a similar zombie problem for years, but tend to always find creative ways to introduce new variations. In The Walking Dead’s case, this usually has something to do with how people are exploiting zombies, for example, using them as defense mechanisms. The Last of Us 2 actually utilized this technique as well, during Ellie’s brief encounter with the Rattlers, who chained up infected around their compound and used them to hunt down intruders. This was introduced quite late in the game but is possibly something that could be expanded upon more in further sequels.
Seeing as The Last of Us 2 used the Rat King as an example of a ground zero infected type, another thing that would be interesting to see is if the outbreak changes depending on location. Could the infected change in order to adapt and survive, like in water or desert-based environments? The Last of Us has seen a range of changing seasons and cities, but Naughty Dog could still take advantage of this to bring in new enemy variants. The bottom line is that for a The Last of Us 3 game to happen it will need to expand further on its existing lineup of enemies, which could potentially lead to something far more challenging than the Rat King.
The Last of Us 2 is out now exclusively on PS4.
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