What is a Bloater in The Last of Us?
By Daniel Roman
It’s been quite a ride on The Last of Us, HBO’s big new post-apocalyptic drama. Based on the 2013 video game, The Last of Us is about a hardened survivor named Joel (Pedro Pascal) who has to escort teenage girl Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a zombie-infested United States.
The Last of Us shares a lot of DNA with your typical zombie show but also stands out with its character-driven stories. It also has a pretty unique take on its zombified humans in that they’re not undead or created by a virus or anything, but rather human beings whose bodies have been overtaken by an evolved version of a real-life fungus known as Cordyceps.
As such, the infected on The Last of Us look unique compared to your more typical zombies. We’ve already seen Clickers, humans who have been infected long enough that their heads take on a mushroom-like quality and they lose their eyesight. But are there any other varieties of infected we should expect to see on The Last of Us?
The short answer is yes, and soon. The trailer for Episode 5 reveals that a bigger, scarier fungal zombie is on its way, one that players of the game know isn’t to be taken lightly: Bloaters.
If you’re just now hearing that terminology, read on for more information about these particular fungal zombies and how they could appear in The Last of Us on HBO. This is a spoiler-free article, so proceed without fear…of spoilers. Stay alert for zombies, though.
What’s under the floor in The Last of Us?
In Episode 4, while Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) and her raiders are out searching for Henry, Sam, Joel and Ellie, something worse is burrowing up into one of the abandoned buildings in Kansas City. We get a brief glimpse of this when Kathleen’s right hand man Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) shows her that the floor in a nearby building is beginning to heave as if something is trying to emerge from underneath.
While we can’t say for certain whether the thing under the floor is a Bloater, it seems the obvious conclusion. Bloaters are a big, extra scary kind of infected that haven’t yet appeared in the show. You can just catch a glimpse of one in the trailer, so we know for sure that it’s coming in Episode 5. And given that the episode appears to be ramping up to a big mid-season action set piece, it would make sense for Bloaters to receive a suitably dramatic introduction.
What is a Bloater in The Last of Us?
But what exactly is a Bloater, and why do they look so different from other infected?
As Joel explains to Ellie in The Last of Us video game, Bloaters are infected which have been carrying the Cordyceps fungus for a long time. Some, in his estimates, have been roaming around for upwards of a decade. The fungus has completely covered their bodies, giving them a kind of armor that makes them difficult to hurt with conventional weapons. Like Clickers, they have no eyesight and maneuver using echolocation. They are incredibly strong.
There are four types of infected in the original Last of Us game: Runners (which still look more or less people), Stalkers (halfway between a Runner and Clicker), Clickers, and Bloaters. The fungus gets worse the longer someone carries the Cordyceps. Bloaters are the natural culmination of the Cordyceps fungus in humans, and they are terrifying.
They actually make their debut even earlier in the game; Joel and Ellie are forced to face one while they’re helping Bill track down a car battery. Given how the show changed Bill and Frank’s story and is spreading the appearance of its various creatures across the course of the season, it makes sense that it held back on introducing Bloaters.
It’s also worth noting that in the handful of glimpses we’ve gotten of the Bloater in the trailers, it’s often set against a fiery background. This could prove important: fire is one of the only real weaknesses that Bloaters have in the game.
We’ll find out how Joel and Ellie survive their encounter with one of these horrifying monsters when The Last of Us Episode 5 airs this weekend. The new episode hits HBO Max two days early, on Friday at 9:00 p.m. EST. It will still air at its regular Sunday time on HBO proper.
Next. The Last of Us Episode 4: What did they change from the game?. dark
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