After Hearing The Last Of Us Co-Creator's Reason For Introducing The Game's Spores In Season 2, I'm Pretty Sure I Know How It'll Happen

I’m calling it now: no upcoming 2025 TV show will feature even half of the fungi-related infections that The Last of Us Season 2 will. That’s obviously not a very risky bet to make, considering Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie are survivors in a world torn apart by the cordyceps fungus. Still, the point is that the horror drama’s threats will be deadlier than ever, as the HBO series is introducing the video games’ spore clouds.

A particularly enticing shot of the live-action spores appears in the full-length Season 2 trailer unveiled at the SXSW panel in Austin, and co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann joined the cast on stage to tease fans with all the emotional carnage on the way. In particular, Mazin used the word “escalation” to describe the second season’s infected threats, saying it’s not just about upping the number and the types, but also about making their impact on the human survivors’ stories as meaningful as can be.

After Mazin spoke to the hesitancy to go too far already, knowing at least one more season is on the way (if not more to follow), Druckmann tied the aforementioned escalation to the emergence of spores, and he shared some insight into why the creative team waited until Season 2 to bring them to the screen. Here’s the duo’s back and forth:

• NEIL DRUCKMANN: Yeah, there’s an escalation of numbers and types of infected. But also, as you see in the trailer, an escalation of the vector of how this thing spreads. You know, Season 1, we had this new thing that wasn’t in the game of these tendrils that spread, and that was one form. And then one shot you see in this trailer, there are things in the air.
• CRAIG MAZIN: S’mores…
• NEIL DRUCKMAN: Rhymes with…
• CRAIG MAZIN: Spores. Yes, they’re back. They’re back. Spores are back. Scattered spores, fans! Get it.
• NEIL DRUCKMANN: And the reason [we’re doing it now], I mean, we really wanted to figure it out, and again, everything has to be drama. There had to be a dramatic reason of introducing it now. And there is.

To me, it sounds similar to how Season 1 didn’t bring out its disgustingly evolved Bloater until Episode 5, when Kathleen’s militia provided the behemoth a big enough body count to justify its emergence. No reason to spend the time and money on spores visuals for a scene that would work just as well without them. But on the flip side...

I Think I Know How The Last Of Us Will Introduce Spores In Season 2

Similar to my safe wager in the intro, I think we're just as safe to go into TLoU's second season with the assumption that the TV series will bring spores into the story for arguably the sequence where they matter the most as a storytelling element and not just as a way to change up the game's aesthetic in a spooky way. And gamers will likely know exactly which sequence i'm referring to.

For those who haven't played, I won't delve into full-on spoilers just yet, but I think it's safe to reveal that Ellie and Isabela Merced's Dina are the characters involved. I also think it's safe to assume the moment will be faithful to the source material, since it might be impossible for the upcoming video game adaptation to change course on how the scene plays out. It's extremely important for their shared chemistry, as well as a catalyst for where things go from that point forward.

Rather than outright changing events from the game, Mazin and Druckmann have so far successfully only added further context and ideas to this universe that players have explored excessively since the original game's 2013 release. The episode "Long, Long Time," which won guest star Nick Offerman a Primetime Emmy, is a great example of how the TV series can make a germ of an idea blossom into gold.

Check out the full-length Season 2 trailer revealed at SXSW, and read on for the more SPOILER-FILLED VERSION of my prediction.

Everyone who's still reading is aware of what happens in the game, right? Good.

The most impactful spores-specific moment in the game definitely comes when Dina and Ellie are struggling to stay alive in the destruction-filled subway tunnels. After taking down a runner who was attacking Ellie, Dina discovers the other girl's gas mask is cracked, and starts to remove her own in response, sparking Ellie to scream at her to stop. Though they don't have the time to get into it right then, it's the moment where Dina learns that Ellie is immune to the infection.

Isabela Merced teased one major scene making it to everyone’s social media feeds when it airs, though I'm not certain that the spores sequence is the one she was referring to, although the writers may have found a way to bring even more heightened drama into the reveal.

Obviously it's within the realm of possibility for my above assumptions to be completely off-base, and for The Last of Us to go in a completely different direction with the way it introduces spores into Season 2. But that would require going in a different direction with Ellie's reveal to Dina, and I can't imagine Mazin and Druckmann would want to change that set-up entirely.

Also worth noting is that neither Mazin nor Druckmann is saying that spores will become a newly discovered threat for survivors, so it's probably safe to assume that spore clouds' lethal nature is known about and understood in this world, even if viewers are out of the loop. Otherwise, Dina might unwillingly walk into her own death trap without realizing it. (And I really hope that's not a twist being utilized.)

While waiting for Season 2 to arrive on HBO on Sunday, April 13, 2025, be sure to catch up with Season 1 with a Max subscription, and make sure your gas masks are in pristine working order.