Naughty Dog had a behind-the-scenes class in making the Infected in The Last of Us Part II terrifying; Environment Art Director Andres Rodriguez Avila Tweeted a detailed breakdown for much geekery from the fans. The Last of Us Part II Remastered was out already for PS5 and PC, just as some nightmare-fuel enemies were revealed to us in production.”
First, let’s justify why the Infected TLOU Part II hits different. Less a straight story where Clickers could have been the prime evil in the first game, Part II dares to show us the Horde-an amalgamation of Infected terrors that feel like an infinitely wavy stream of pure dread; such is the endeavor behind wickedness.”
Avila began by describing the round of design that conceived of more than mindless zombies-to think and react to sound, coordinate attacks, and induce panic and crazy into every encounter.”
It was all about animation and interaction in the environment. The Infected do not just run towards you but rather climb, crawl and smash through the objects, thus making everything around feel realistic (or dead, as a more appropriate word).
So much was said about how they twisted motion capture to get that off-putting awkwardness: actors played the Infected and thus gave these ones lunging onto Ellie’s throat an eerily humanistic feel.
And then there is sound design. Suddenly sound design. The screaming, the groaning, the Infected almost-whispering conversations put dread to a whole other stratosphere. Avila said they hired real human beings to record voice and then manipulated the recordings. Weirdly familiar enough to creep you out? Absolutely. Foreign enough to really freak you out? Totally.
Places were designed to where Infected feel in, with Avila explaining how containment set design puts decisions in the player’s lap. Do they try to sneak by, risking getting surrounded? Or should they go loud and take their chances? Level design dictates infected behavior, so every encounter feels dynamic and unpredictable.
Now the remaster on PS5 and PC takes all these and polishes them. Higher frame rate, better textures, gorgeous lighting to make an Infected scary. If you’ve been scared once, just wait till he’s staring you down in 4K with ray tracing.
So if you’re undecided about buying The Last of Us Part II Remastered, then it probably was the shove you needed. If you have it, maybe it’s time for a second playthrough, with the lights on.
