HBO's The Last Of Us makes controversial change to the Infected

We made it. HBO’s The Last of Us series officially premieres this week, in the US at least. This Sunday will see the 85-minute whopper of a debut episode air. Those of us in the UK can catch it one day later on 16 January.

The Last of Us isn’t a show that will overstay its welcome. Showrunner Craig Mazin and franchise creator Neil Druckmann have confirmed that they’re only interested in adapting the existing games and won’t venture beyond that source material, as we’ve seen in shows like Game of Thrones. The Last of Us series is also set to feature less violence than the game, instead opting to focus on the core emotional story. For the most part, the series promises to be a faithful adaptation, but one major change has been made to the Infected.

Take a look at The Last of Us’ trailer below.

Infected are essentially zombies - humans who have been infected with the Cordyceps fungus - and there are two ways the fungus spreads, via both bite and spores in the air. Spores only become an issue in large quantities, so characters will often wear gas masks when entering dark, enclosed areas. It’s now been revealed though that this is no longer the case in the TV show.

Spores have been removed and replaced with tendrils. Explaining the change, Mazin told Collider, “Well, we wanted to ground this show in as much science as possible. The game did it pretty darn well, especially for a genre where it would be easy to say, ‘Oh, there’s zombies, but the zombies come out of the ground.’ Cordyceps is a fascinating concept, and it’s absolutely real. We wanted to push that a little further. We wanted to give us as much reality as we could because the realer that is, the more we connect to the characters that are in that space playing around.”

Cordyceps tendrils are real, although the fungus does not affect humans. The tendrils allow the fungus to reach out in a bid to infect news hosts. This shouldn’t drastically change the story. In fact, there’s only one scene I can think of where a gas mask proves to be crucial - and that’s in Part II. I won’t delve in for spoiler’s sake, but it’s easy to see how this could be reworked. I wonder what other changes the show has in store.