The Last of Us Creators Discuss How the Infection Spread

While the video game version of The Last of Us doesn’t explicitly state what the origins of the virus that spread across Earth is, the HBO live-action adaptation has addressed it. According to showrunner Craig Mazin and game creator Neil Druckmann, some more of the origin of the fungal infection will be explored.

Speaking to Variety in a recent interview, Mazin and Druckmann — the latter of whom wrote and co-directed development on the first game — were asked if the origins of the fungus that has spread across Earth would be explored more. According to Druckmann, while the original game didn’t go too far into what had happened, Mazin was curious about what happened, and the show will likely dive into more of what happened.

“Everything we saw in the game was from three characters’ perspective — [Joel’s daughter] Sarah, Joel and Ellie, that’s it,” said Druckmann. “Here, we have the ability leave those characters and show some other stuff, but it was always important to never say, “OK, here is patient zero, the exact origin.” A lot of it is based on hints. Craig would come to me with his millions of questions, like “How did this thing spread?” We had one hint in the game, in the newspaper you pick up as Sarah, where it implies that there were contaminated products. We talked about: How would this spread? Where would it start? We’re revealing more and more from the first episode, where we gave hints of things that would have turned out very different for the Millers had they made those pancakes. Now, we get to see a bit more of how this thing started.”

Speaking of the pancakes, the duo was then asked about a very popular theory that popped up following the first episode. The theory stated that it was actually flour that caused the fungus to spread, and used different clues from the first episode to deduce that. When asked, both Druckmann and Mazin confirmed the theory, with Mazin noting “I think it’s pretty explicit” while Druckmann said “we pretty much said yes,” before Mazin explained the origins a bit more.

“When she talks about where these people worked and what was going on in that factory — yeah, it’s pretty clear that’s what’s going on,” Mazin said. “We liked the idea of that science, and we try as best we can to make sure that our research all connects. [The mycologist] asks where it happened, and the guy says a flour factory on the west side of the city. We are absolutely talking about — there is the world’s largest flour mill in Jakarta — so that’s a fine theory and I think people should keep running with it.”

The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max, and airs every Sunday on HBO.