The Last of Us: 8 biggest changes from the video game in season 1

2. There are way fewer infected running around, but more variation in their design

Since we’re talking about infected, we might as well hit on the other big change the show made. In general, there are way less infected in the television series than in the video game. This might have been due to production logistics; instead of having Joel and Ellie periodically fight off infected, the show highlights them in a handful of terrifying set pieces, like the clicker fight in Episode 2 or the battle in the Kansas City QZ in Episode 5.

In the game, the infected are an ever-present threat that can turn up at any moment. You see them in pretty much every location of the first game except for the area surrounding Jackson. In the show, we don’t see Joel and Ellie fight a single infected after their time in Kansas City. Instead, the show focuses more on human drama. They only appear very briefly in flashback scenes in Episodes 7 and 9.

On the other hand, the HBO show features a lot more different kinds of infected than the games do. No two look alike, and when they appear they’re always a scary highlight. One of the biggest examples is the child clicker in eEisode 5; in the game, the only infected child we saw was Sam, and that was in a single cutscene. We certainly never saw any children who had been infected long enough to become clickers. I’ve always wondered if this had more to do with game design than anything, since having smaller enemies would require adding new animations for Joel to be able to engage with them.

The show had no such limitations, so we can have nightmares about child clickers as long as we like. Thanks, HBO!