The Last of Us - The Cordyceps Fungus

The developer Naughty Dog is imprinted on a generation of gamers, not least because their name blared out of our TVs every time we booted up Crash Bandicoot 3. They are the minds behind Crash, Jak and Daxter (one of my personal favourite game series of all time), and more recently, Nathan Drake of the Uncharted series.

Now, however, the studio are working on a brand new game, The Last of Us. Due to be release in May of next year, it's a post apocalyptic zombie story, only without the zombies. Naughty Dog have taken a genre that's considered a little tired, and given it an exciting new twist. Let's have a closer look.

The Set-Up:

You play as Joel, a black market dealer under the heel of the oppressive United States governmental regime. Two decades before the events of the game, a fungus known as cordyceps killed millions of people, resulting in the collapse of society. Those infected with the fungus today are inventively known as the Infected, and have giant fungal growths coming out of their bodies. The Infected are controlled by the fungus to spread spores as far as possible. It's not nice for anyone involved.