HBO’s The Last of Us: Every Kind of Infected Zombie

The last of us‘ Monsters are not ordinary zombies. Yes, they are disgusting. yes they bite But they don’t revive after death. Instead, they are living humans taken over by a named fungus Cordyceps – their whole thing is multiplying and spreading the infection as far and wide as possible.

the Cordyceps The infection develops over the lifespan of an infected person, which makes the infected of the Last of Us games all the more frightening. Each of these different developments creates a unique threat. For example, the first phase – when a person has turned around for the first time – is super fast and can spot uninfected people who can be tracked. Clickers, a later instar, are blind, with fungal growths that split their faces open and obscure their vision.

We haven’t seen all of the infected guys from the games featured on HBO The last of usbut they are likely to come.

runner

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

The first stage of infection occurs when the fungus spreads throughout the body. At HBO The last of us, the show’s creators included an infographic to explain how long it takes for the infection to spread inside a person depending on the bite site: on the head or neck, it happens quickly, in minutes. If the bite is on an extremity such as a leg or arm, it will take closer to 24 hours. The first signs of infection are coughing, slurred speech, muscle spasms, and mood swings. (Remember that old lady in Episode 1? The muscle spasms were the first sign.)

Runners are fast – inhumanly fast – and often travel in large groups. These look a lot like normal zombies because they haven’t started sprouting mushrooms yet.

stalker

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Stalkers are probably the most common type of infected. They are slightly more advanced than runners and have visible changes – fungus growing from their bodies and sometimes their flesh visibly decaying. Stalkers are not as fast as Runners, but they are very deadly, always on the lookout and ready to attack. In the games, stalkers sometimes grow on walls with fungal tendrils that hold them in place. If you pass, they will break free in a surprise attack.

We saw these on HBO The last of usbut fully ingrown into the wall and seemingly dead. In some cases the fungal network appears to still be alive, but in others it is clearly dead and crumbling.

clicker

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Probably the scariest sound on the show (and games), clickers are infected, which have been around for a while, with mushrooms visibly protruding from the head and eyes taking over. They cannot see anything, so it is necessary to approach them slowly and quietly. Any sound will alert a clicker, and they are very good at finding their prey using audio cues. They are easily identified by their distinctive clicking sound, a form of echolocation, and by the massive fruit fungus that sprout from the head. We saw a few of these on HBO The last of us at Boston’s Historical Museum in the second episode.

Bloaters / Shamblers

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Gas is the most advanced stage, and there are a few different variants within the group. We haven’t seen any of these on the show, but HBO has previously teased a bloater in one of them The last of us‘ Follower. You can tell an infected is a bloater by their size – they’re big, grotesque, and of course bloated with decaying fungus sacs. Bloaters and Shamblers are slower but very powerful, and they can have a burst of energy to lunge at an enemy. The fungal layers act like armor, which also makes them difficult to kill. They can also rip these growths off their bodies and throw them, sending harmful acid everywhere. If you get caught by a Bloater in-game, that’s an instant kill – and it’ll rip your head in half through the jaw.

Shamblers are basically water-saturated bloaters that are more common in the West Coast games. They’re pretty similar, but they emit an acidic gas that they spit at enemies.

rat king

Image: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

We’ve only seen one infected Rat King in the Last of Us games, and it’s pretty gnarly: it’s a wobbling mass of multiple infected clickers, runners, and stalkers, all squished together. It may be an anomaly, and who knows if we’ll see one in the first season of The last of us. The fight against the rat king in The Last of Us Part 2 takes place in two phases and the monster disintegrates into different infected. It has all the traits of the infected that make it capable of throwing mushroom bombs and emitting poison gas.