People now pay to walk through a pitch black recreation of a fungal quarantine zone at Universal Studios, which says a lot about the cultural gravity of The Last of Us. This deep dive follows the franchise from a risky secret project at Naughty Dog, code named Project Thing, through a sequel that intentionally alienated part of its audience, a failed feature film, an Emmy nominated HBO series, and a multimedia footprint of more than 37 million copies sold.

We look at the real cordyceps fungus that inspired the infected and the clickers, the story of Joel and Ellie and the morally gray hospital ending, the Left Behind expansion, and how Part 2 forced players to inhabit Abby, the daughter of the surgeon Joel killed. We also unpack why Sony’s blockbuster movie plans with Sam Raimi stalled, why television was the right format for the story’s quiet moments, and how Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann, Pedro Pascal, and Bella Ramsey turned a game into a series that competed with the heavyweights of premium TV.

• How Naughty Dog split its staff between Uncharted and a grim experimental project led by Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann
• Why the true monsters are the surviving humans, and how Joel’s lie to Ellie became one of gaming’s most debated endings
• Ludonarrative dissonance in Part 2: over 2,000 developers across 14 studios, forced perspective shifts, and the choice to deny players revenge
• The HBO adaptation’s expansions of the lore, including the Bill episode with Nick Offerman and Ashley Johnson returning as Ellie’s mother
• The Halloween Horror Nights maze with new dialogue from Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, the mixed PC port reception, and the script being published as a 600-page hardcover