The following contains minor story spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2.
How the Cordyceps brain infection’s fungi mutation can fester has always been fascinating in The Last of Us. Infected can be found idly roaming just about anywhere, but players also come across dark, humid interiors perfumed with spores, contaminating the air and rendering it unbreathable. Here, fungi are planted along surfaces where infected have been left to rot, creating an insidious overgrowth that many survivors dare not linger among for long, and absolutely not without a gas mask thwarting the inhalation of The Last of Us’ spores.
Spores are introduced early in The Last of Us when Joel and Tess are heading out and come across a survivor who is trapped beneath rubble and has a broken gas mask. This is the first time players get to fire Joel’s pistol at someone, and it happens to be a choice the player makes of whether they want to put a dying man out of his misery or leave him to turn. This is a fantastic choice to give to the player when it’s them choosing someone else’s fate, and yet it could be doubly enticing if a Last of Us game debuted gas masks as equippable items.
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The Last of Us’ Gas Masks Serve Important Roles in the Story
In The Last of Us Part 2, Abby searches a hotel brimming with infected for a FEDRA gas mask that Lev can wear. This is a terrific premise for an encounter in theory, but not in practice, as players simply interact with multiple corpses until an intact gas mask is found. Because gas masks aren’t actual items and are worn automatically by the character, they lack the punch they’d pack if they were items with their own durability or significance in gameplay.
For instance, in The Last of Us Part 1, Joel and Tess grab their gear—a backpack, a gun, and a gas mask—in a clandestine tunnel before sneakily navigating the outskirts of Boston’s QZ to interrogate Robert. Joel endures a lot on the roughly year-long journey he unknowingly embarks on that day, but his gas mask never sustains damage or is at risk of being lost, as evidenced by him still having one to wear when he maneuvers through the university campus’ spore-laden dorm rooms.
With a gas mask always on-hand, spore nests are never as daunting as they could be if gas masks were rare, equippable items, though it wouldn’t necessarily be logical in a game as linear as The Last of Us to deny players access to spore nests if they hadn’t collected a gas mask beforehand. Narratively, gas masks have been a phenomenal way of exemplifying the threat the infection poses beyond enemies biting or mauling players. Plus, Ellie’s gas mask fracturing in Seattle’s subway tunnels is a compelling means to have Dina panic and nearly kill Ellie before witnessing firsthand that Ellie is immune, and also demonstrates once more how easily gas masks break when struck.
How Equippable Gas Masks Could Look in a Last of Us Game
In a hypothetical, nonlinear Last of Us game with open-zone regions full of corners to explore and loot, equippable gas mask items could truly display how terrifying spore nests are. Indeed, having to find a gas mask somewhere in the environment or purchase one at a hub settlement in order to enter areas with spores could enable such nests to behave like optional, difficult dungeons rewarding players with greater loot.
It’d be a bit too unbelievably convenient and disrupt immersion if players came across gas masks often, but being infrequently lootable with a low drop rate could help cement them as a precious resource worth searching every nook and cranny for, so long as they aren’t impossible to get a hold of when players truly need them. Then, when one is found, it’d be imperative that it could break in one hit or one enemy grapple so that players can’t hang onto it for the rest of the game with no consequence.
Because gas masks aren’t actual items and are worn automatically by the character, they lack the punch they’d pack if they were items with their own durability or significance in gameplay.
Of course, having a gas mask break within nests would make for incredibly suspenseful and anxiety-inducing dungeons due to that resulting in a near-instant death, but there would need to be a way for them to break when they’re not being worn, too, or else they’d rarely be in harm’s way.
Moreover, this hypothetical gameplay concept would require not playing as Ellie or anyone else who was immune and wouldn’t need to wear a gas mask. Ellie’s immunity in The Last of Us definitely affords her a unique playstyle, and yet it completely trivializes everything special about a nest when the character can breathe spores freely.
The Last Of Us Part II Remastered
- Released
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January 19, 2024
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Engine
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Proprietary Engine