Accidentally-Correct Writing: Given the Artistic License – Medicine present in terms of how Ellie's immunity would be used to engineer a vaccine when fungal vaccines might not even be possible, the nature of Ellie's immunity to the Cordyceps is actually rather accurate. In-game artifacts mention that the Cordyceps grows on the brain, and Marlene says that Ellie's has mutated. Ellie's not truly The Immune, but instead protected from infection by her own mutated Cordyceps.More details Imagine the mainline game's Cordyceps as Fungus A and Ellie's as Fungus B. Fungal infections have extremely varied immune responses, one of them being that they don't invoke a powerful immune response. Both A and B are the kinds of fungal infections that don't really activate the immune system. However, Fungus A is a parasitoid (which is distinct category from parasites) that invades the body, brain, and central nervous system to turn the host into a violent raging creature with the sole purpose of spreading the Cordyceps. Fungus B is a symbiotic creature that simply houses itself in its host's body, and actively defends the host against Fungus A, rendering the person immune to the Cordyceps. Humans already are experimenting with this kind of symbiotic relationship, but with bacteriophages, viruses that specifically prey on bacteria, as an alternative to antibiotics. It's still embryonic and experimental, but it's already been used to save a life before.
Ascended Fanon: An inversion of sorts. While the original concepts for Joel and Ellie had their last names as "Miller" and "Williams", respectively (see What Could Have Been below), Naughty Dog eventually decided to scrap all last names from the game. This hasn't stopped some fans from running with the scrapped names, and Part II canonized "Miller" as Joel's surname. Neil Druckmann canonized “Williams” as Ellie’s surname in this tweet.
A sound-based one. When Joel interrupts Ellie from hacking David to pieces, the machete can be heard hitting the ground, yet a few seconds later it's shown to be stuck in David's head.
At one point during the University chapter, Joel fights some Infected while alone and tells Ellie about it afterwards. Ellie asks about the clickers, even though Joel never specified the type of Infected.
California Doubling: A rare video game example. Naughty Dog recycled the road signs from the Pittsburgh segments of the game to use on the roads in Boston, leading to the odd sight of a highway sign in what's supposed to be Boston saying that the Fort Duquesne Bridge is ahead.
Dawson Casting: Would you believe Ellie and Joel's voice actors are only seven years apart? 14-year old Ellie is voiced by 30-year old Ashley Johnson. Inverted with 52-year old Joel who is voiced by 37-year old Troy Baker. Additionally, 16-year old Riley is voiced by 32-year old Yaani King, and Joel's little brother Tommy is voiced by Jeffrey Pierce, who is five years older than Troy.
Deleted Scene: A 2014 'Live Performance' of The Last Of Us revealed a scene that was meant to have been The Stinger, but got cut out. The scene (acted by Troy and Ashley, not animated) features Joel and Ellie some few months after settling at Tommy's, where Joel visits Ellie in her room and talks a bit about a woman Tommy has been setting him up with. Ellie still acts a little down after the outcome of their journey and Joel's lie. Joel then presents a guitar and plays a song for her, with Ellie thanking him when he's done. He gives her the guitar as a present, and she plays a few notes on it after he walks out. With the exception of Joel mentioning Tommy trying to set him up with someone, this scene became the intro to the sequel.
Dueling Games: Has parallels to a number of games, including:
BioShock Infinite: It was the year of "Yes, grizzled Troy Baker character, you can be a father figure." Both are AAA games with a heavy focus on narrative featuring guitar playing, Unscrupulous Hero protagonists voiced by Troy Baker, who both lost their daughter 20 years ago and are now charged with escorting a girl named Elizabeth or a derivative of such, teaching her the ways of the world, and eventually turning against a black woman leading a revolutionary force.
The Walking Dead: Man takes care of a young girl in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.
Metro2033/Last Light: Post-apocalyptic Survival Horror story set in the ruins of a former superpower nation in 2033, heavy use of Improvised Weapons, hostile environs that require a gas mask and a rechargeable flashlight, ability to choose between stealthy or loud approaches to combat, even more guitar playing, and were both games on the PS3 that got remastered for the PS4 in 2014.
The Division: Both games revolve around a dangerous new virus/infection that causes mass chaos which results in a post-apocalyptic scenario for humanity. There's enactment of martial law, with roving gangs looting and killing anyone who dares to cross their path and scientists desperately looking for a cure to the virus. Both games also feature fierce anti-government organizations that regularly get into battles against the military.
For one take of the final cinematic (which was turned into an interactive scene in the final game), Merle Dandridge was told to deliver her lines in a certain way and Troy Baker was independently told to keep going no matter what (he had been fumbling the prop gun during most takes). You can see the result in this behind-the-scenes video.
When acting out the cutscene during Fall where Ellie confronts Joel about leaving her, Ashley pushed Troy while saying "...everyone - fucking except for you [have left her]." The push was unscripted, but Druckmann thought it fit well and let it stay. In fact, it wasn't the first time Ashley had pushed someone during that line. She previously did so with another man trying out for Joel's part, with the latter being so caught in the moment he pushed her back.
The original script for Bill's character said nothing about his sexual orientation. When W. Earl Brown read that Bill would say he once had a "partner", Brown asked Neil Druckmann what this meant, with Druckmann responding, "What do you think it means?" Brown could decide what he wanted Bill to be and thus he added the hints here and there himself that Bill was gay.
Extremely Lengthy Creation: Druckmann came up with the basic idea of the story (originally “Joel” was a cop) for a competition in 2004 while he was in graduate school but didn’t start working on it till 2011.
Lying Creator: Enforced. Naughty Dog felt the need to insist that you only play as Joel and never as Ellie in interviews because they felt the twist was so crucial to the story.
In "The Last of Us", a game where the US is ravaged by a mutant fungi, who is the voice actor of the male lead? A1. Troy Baker A2. Ellen Page A3. Brandon Scott
Science Marches On: Downplayed example, but the species of Cordyceps that the infection in the game is based on is now considered to be part of a different genus, Ophiocordyceps.
More notably, when the first game was being crafted, it was thought that Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infiltrated the ant's brain in the end, much like CBI in the game. In 2017, it was discovered that the brain is never corrupted; Ophiocordyceps instead relies on generating hormones to manipulate the ant, and the death grip just before the fruiting body is generated uses muscle manipulation.
Urban Legend of Zelda: Following the controversial story of the sequel, rumors began circulating online that the developers removed or altered an artifact that stated there were other immune people like Ellie that they killed trying to find a cure, either from the remake, the remaster, to even an unpatched version of the original game. While the remake did change a few things, no artifacts were removed or altered in any version. What they’re likely referring to is an artifact from a surgeon in the hospital, but it specifically states that they were working with infected people, not immune ones.
Tess was originally conceived as a major antagonist, harboring a grudge against Joel for betraying her in the past. More about it can be read here.
An AMA on reddit.com with game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckman revealed some interesting things:
Early in development, Joel's last name was given as "Miller" and Ellie's as "Williams," but Neil Druckmannrevealed that the decision was made to cut all last names from the final product. These names are still listed in the Japanese manual, however.
Ellie’s name was Lily in the early phase of development. The name would instead be used in the sequel as Lev’s deadname.
Joel rescuing Ellie from the operating room was originally going to be a cutscene, which can be seen parodied here (spoilers, obviously) with Troy Baker and Merle Dandridge singing the dialogue in the ending.
Instead of giraffes, Joel and Ellie were going to encounter a herd of deer, but the developers figured giraffes would make it more special.
The game was originally going to be a Jak and Daxter game, but because the developers felt that they were only making it because it was an existing IP they could easily make money off of, they went to their higher ups and explained that they didn't feel like they were making the game for the right reasons and they didn't really feel passionate about it. They were then told to do what they wanted, and thus The Last of Us was born. Naughty Dog later released some of the concept art for the game in an artbook, revealing a photorealistic Jak◊ and a steampunk setting.◊
Checking out the concept art for the game will reveal many things that were considered during production. Perhaps most notably is how early designs of Infected showed some of them carrying tools as weapons while others were merged together. Apparently, the creators also played around with the idea of Ellie having a dog.
Joel came very close to being voiced by someone other than Troy Baker. Troy nearly walked out of the audition when he saw his competition, which consisted of several men resembling Joel far more in terms of both looks and age, thus Troy figured he stood no chance. His agent called as he was about to walk out, however, and told Troy to at least give it a shot. And the rest is history, as they say.
They toyed with the idea of including a note written by Ish, but eventually decided not to, as it would've been little more than Pandering to the Base.
Originally, the DLC wasn't even going to show the moment where Riley and Ellie get bitten.
Originally, the game was going to be called Mankind, where the infection only affected women and Ellie was The Immune, functionally causing a Gendercide in addition to the Zombie Apocalypse. The idea was deemed misogynistic and scrapped, but as explained here, remnants of this initial design decision can still be seen in the final game, particularly with how the Infected are mostly female.
The scene where Sarah dies would originally have cut directly to the 20-years later Time Skip, but Druckmann figured the transition was too abrupt, not letting Sarah's death sink properly in, and thus the opening credits was added.
One of the actors trying out for Bill's part was Michael Rooker, aka Merle Dixon from The Walking Dead.
When Joel puts on a cassette that Ellie stole during the drive to Pittsburgh, it was originally going to play Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", but the rights to the song was so expensive that ND couldn't afford it. Hence it plays Hank Williams' "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" instead.
Before Bill's character was established, Ellie was originally going to steal a female porn magazine, and when throwing it out the window would shout "Bye bye, ladies" instead of "Bye bye, dude". Once they decided that Bill would be implied to be gay, it got changed to the male porn mag instead.
The PS5 remake was originally envisioned as a remake of the first Uncharted game, but they decided to do the first Last of Us due to the assets of that game being older and deemed unworkable for a remake. Sony also had to be convinced to let them do a remake of this game, which they did after seeing a proof of concept demo of it.
Early concept art shows runner stage infected having enough intelligence to wield crude melee weapons like pitchforks and shovels.
Concept art also reveals several Infected designs that didn't make it into the final game:
An amalgam of three infected bonded together by fungal growths; a design that would be revisited in The Last of Us Part 2 as the Rat King boss.
A fully armored evolution of the clicker with a tail, elongated arms, and sharp claws.
A plant-like infected where most of the host has rotted away, essentially being a skeleton puppeted by vines.
“Now when I was writing it I was writing it with the idea that Ellie is gay, and when the actresses were working they were definitely working with the idea that they’re both attracted to each other. That was the subtext and intention that they were playing with from the opening cinematic when they’re holding each other’s hands for too long, or when Riley bites her on the neck; there’s that chemistry there from the get go that was important for us so that we earned that moment when they kissed each other. So that it wasn’t just out of the blue but also wasn’t so overt that you’re like “Oh of course. Just get on with it.”
The creators are pretty adamant that she was conceived as a lesbian during their initial pitch, but they couldn't figure out how to have her say that to Joel, and thus the player, during the main game, or have her mention that to herself during the Winter-chapter. And so they put it on the "maybe"-pile. The DLC subsequently canonized it.
Word of Saint Paul: Henry's actor, Brandon Scott, has his own backstory for the brothers where Sam is actually Henry's half-brother, born as a result of Henry's mother being raped. Henry initially hated Sam for this and wanted to get rid of him after their mother died, but eventually realized he couldn't kill an innocent child and decided to take care of him instead. It would add a whole new layer to their relationship and makes their deaths even more tragic and heartbreaking as a result.
Write What You Know: According to Druckmann, the Central Theme of this game about the primacy of parental love came from the experiences in his own life:
He says he had a discussion with his father as a kid that’s always stuck with him about it. One time, the Israeli government did a prisoner trade to get one soldier back for a group of Hamas members. He asked his dad if he agreed with the decision. His dad told him that if you look at it from a rational, political perspective, he vehemently disagreed with the decision. However, he also told him that if that soldier had been him or his brother, it would have been absolutely the right call.
He also became a father for the first time during the production of the game. He says that this was part of the reason they saved filming Sarah’s death scene for last. Ellie was actually a name he and his wife considered for their daughter.
Misc. Trivia
Ellie and Joel's conversation while in the car headed for Pittsburgh, while taking place a while into the game, was one of the first scenes Ashley and Troy tried out for together.
When you first control Ellie, you can search her backpack in the inventory screen to find several items the game never alerts you about, including Sam's toy, the photo she later gives Joel and a letter from her mothernote Inspecting all of these items (from both sides if applicable) is actually required to unlock the trophy for finding all artifacts. Good luck finding that out on your own..
When Tommy shows Joel around the power plant in the Fall chapter, Joel eventually comes across a dog he can pet that Tommy mentions is named Buckley. "Buckley" was the name of Troy Baker's own dog that passed away while the game was being made, hence the in-game dog was named after him. Aww...
Nolan North, who plays David (and also Nathan Drake), has never played The Last of Us himself or even knows what the full story of it is. He played his part as David and that was as far as his personal investment went. It's not until late 2019 when he and Troy Baker started a live "Definitive Playthrough" of the game that North would finally learn the story of the famous game that he plays an Arc Villain in.
