A new trailer out from Sony explains the enemies and the ruined environments encountered in Naughty Dog's upcoming The Last of Us.
The idea for the Infected enemies came from watching a documentary on Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus which implants itself in the brain of ants and alters their behavior. What would happen, wondered the Naughty Dog team, if Ophiocordyceps went cross-species and began to infect humans? The resultant zombie-like foes are humans that are slowly and agonizingly mutating. Some Infected can still see and hunt by sight, but at a certain stage of the mutation they become "Clickers," who navigate and hunt by echolocation and sound.
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, say the developers. This contrasts with the older Joel's grim survivalist nature, as he's mainly concerned with the realities of how to get from Point A to Point B.
The Last of Us hits PlayStation 3 on June 14.
