The Last of Us 2 Hospital Level Contains a Major Flaw | Game Rant
The Last of Us 2 has been the subject of controversy since before its release, but most can agree that its world building has stayed consistent between sequels. The presence of the infected is still just as much of a threat as before, and the addition of a new variant, the Shambler, keeps Ellie and company on their toes. Despite all of this, there is one scene in particular that doesn't seem to follow the same rules that were set in stone by the original game, that being the hospital level during Abby's portion of the story.
Halfway through The Last of Us 2, the player takes control of Abby and plays through the story from her perspective. It is at this point it becomes clear that Ellie was always just one step behind Abby, but also that Abby had no idea Ellie was even looking for her. One of the scarier parts of the game is when Abby has to descend to the lower levels of a WLF occupied hospital that remains full of infected. It swiftly becomes apparent that this hospital was ground zero for the infection in Seattle.
Reminiscent of the infamous Hotel Basement level in the original The Last of Us, the hospital level is easily one of the scarier levels in the game. This is in part due to the creepy environment and stigma that comes with an abandoned hospital, but mostly caused by the presence of the abomination known as the Rat King. Players had never seen anything like this before, and it looked like something more out of a Resident Evil game than The Last of Us.
Nevertheless, the Rat King acts as a boss battle of sorts for that area. Things are only made worse by the presence of Stalkers in the area, which fight with intelligence unlike any other infected in the game. Interestingly enough, it is these stalkers that breaks the immersion of this sequence though, not the monstrous Rat King. This break occurs mainly because of some key information that fans learn near the beginning of The Last of Us about the different stages of infection.
Before The Last of Us 2, there were four main stages of infection, and researchers in the post apocalyptic world were able to classify each of these stages based on behavior and lifespan. The first and most common stage was the Runner, these being the standard infected that players frequently encounter. Though they aren't terribly dangerous, in large groups they can be overwhelming. This stage can last as long as one year before the infected transitions into the next step.
Researchers in the game know that by the end of a year, most infected will have fully transitioned into Clickers, but it isn't clear at which point during that first year a runner becomes a Stalker. Given their relative infrequency in The Last of Us, it was thought that the Stalker phase only lasted a couple weeks at most. Finally, Bloaters are the result of hosts that have remained infected for several years, approximately 10 to 15 years. Most infected will die and attach to walls during this time period, sprouting into fungi which causes spores instead of turning into a Bloater.
Given this information, there should theoretically be even less Stalkers and Runners in the world of The Last of Us 2 since a five year time gap has happened since the last game. The only way that anything other than Clickers, Bloaters, and Shamblers could be present is if the remaining members of the already small population got infected. Of course, people are always getting infected, but the infection will slow down as the number of potential hosts decreases.
The Rat King is something of an exception, as it is presumed that 25 years locked in the Hospital caused numerous infected to somehow merge into one creature. Likewise, though this isn't confirmed, many believe that Shamblers are a form of mutated Bloater, changed by exposure to large amounts of water. The presence of so many stalkers simply doesn't make sense if the aforementioned rules hold true, though. If no one has been down there since the infection broke out 25 years ago, how has anyone been infected within the last year and not turned into a Clicker or worse?
With all of this said, there are some potential explanations for why there are so many Stalkers in the hospital. The and potentially the most plausible reason is that the post-apocalyptic researchers could have been wrong about the timing of the infection. Though these groups probably performed their tests efficiently, there was no scientific network through which to peer review or scientific facilities to use. It would also be difficult to safely obtain enough test subjects to get enough substantial data. The story of The Last of Us 2 is full of uncertainty like this and players shouldn't necessarily trust one document found at the start of the first game.
Another thing worth noting is that many of the Stalkers found in the hospital are fused with fungal patches on the walls, only breaking free to attack when the player passes by. This was never seen in the original game, but the extremely humid climate of Seattle caused the infected to mutate into Shamblers instead of Bloaters, so that could be behind this strange occurrence.
Perhaps instead of turning into Clickers or Bloaters, these infected fused into these fungal patches as Stalkers and were preserved as a result. These are all just theories, and there are bound to be other potential explanations for this anomaly. All of this is just to say that from what is known in game about the infection, this doesn't make sense. Whether that is an oversight on the part of Naughty Dog or a hint that the infection still holds many secrets is unknown.
The Last of Us 2 is available now exclusively on PS4.
Post a Comment