@@RocketRiley could you tell me what song you played at 3:44. I really like the way it looks. Especially the repetitive high note. Reminds me of road trips through Florida during a hurricane. You know? Really grey and gloomy. Oh. Um yeah just the name. And thank you for the pictures. And videos. Really helps visualize.
The interesting thing about runners in the game is you often hear them cry. The creators of the game explained that this is due to the mind still being present, and the infected not wanting to act in their urges and crying from despair.
I've always wondered about a zombie apocalypse where everything below the neck is affected but not the head, allowing speech to still be possible among other things.
it's also accurate to the real life cordyceps fungus's effect on ants!! the fungus will actually attack the muscles of the ant it infects and not the brain, leaving the ant to be fully aware of its final moments :3
The fact that in early stages the host is still self aware just has no control has convinced me even more that in zombie apocalypse always have a way to unalive yourself quickly
@@titans2720 I remember playing and hear clicker moan and pick at their fungus. The game never straight up said they were still conscious. But it is heavily implied you just have to pay attention.
@@hawkeyemihawkgettingmoneylord or you could also say they scratch at their face because the fungus can’t properly control the body’s making them act all twitchy and weird. If the person is still conscious inside and can “fight back” then why do they never try to fight back when attacking somebody? Look at every zombie movie they’re all weird and twitchy. The real answer they do that is because the game devs thought it looked creepy and scary when they moved like that 😂
@@titans2720 so you your gonna ignore how I mentioned how they moan like their in pain the vidoe talked about that to? Your clearly not listening and want to believe what you want this is not gonna be a good discussion your mind is already made up peace.
@@titans2720 Although this is not info from the game, the real life cordyceps fungus was found to only infect the body of the insect not the brain implying that it is "trapped in its own body" if the developers knew this they surely would've made it the same in the game cuz aside from being based on reality, just sounds cool for the lore, this is an assumption though
I remember seeing a runner eating what seemed to be someone she knew and was crying while doing so, implying she was aware she was eating her friend/family and was horrified by it but the fungus was forcing her to do it anyways.
@ZAMN! 😻 Yes unfortunately it is, and if you listen closely you can hear the poor woman saying stuff like "No!" And "I don't wanna!" As she gags while eating her friend and or family member... it's genuinely horrific-
Clickers and Bloaters don't care about spreading the infection as much as they care about destroying whatever living thing is Infront of them. It could be because they can't see, but it's probably because at that point the Fungus just doesn't care as much.
@@sun4188 if you need a gun to kill a clicker then you have no chance against a bloater. He will catch you in 2 seconds and even if you manage to hit him his armor will protect him
My guess is that if the fungus isn’t provided enough ‘food’ it begins feeding on the host until they’re too weak to go on, from there the ‘fungus’ focuses on latching its dying host against walls to hopefully continue its cycle by infecting those with its spores. So in my opinion, bloaters and clickers are the way they are *because* they’re well fed, because of this, the fungus on them can furthermore mutate and evolve to create stronger variants.
@@MJ-qc9yl Roanoke Gaming made a video about the Rat King and how it might have formed. Since the hospital was probably one of the ground zeroes of the infection, many people were trapped there once a lockdown was issued. The bloater and a few clickers likely laid down at a corner after there was no one to infect anymore, and fused together at some point. You can see in TLOU2 where the bloater likely rested before Abby disturbed it and it went looking for her.
@@MJ-qc9yl Fungus has the ability to grow root and share nutrients with other roots. So the rat king survive by forming alot of infected bodies into one to share nutrients. One can assume that it used to be bigger.
I thought both the Shambler and the Rat king where both formed not because of the age of the infected but because of the condition they were in. I believe the game specify that a shambler is just as old as the bloater but because of the wet environment it's in, the thick armor and this mussels fail to form completely that it evolves into another form. Making Shamblers tougher then clickers but still weaker compared to bloaters.
What I don’t understand is how there are shamblers in Santa Barbara when the climate tends to be hot and dry. Maybe because they’re by the beach but still I doubt that would completely change their evolution like Seattle would
@@antonydandrea nah the video said that shambles were infected for even longer than bloaters, which isn't true since they are as old as bloaters but differently "evolved" due to their environment
The fungus can’t go to far, if you did not know the reason that the clickers are erratic, is because the fungus has spread out and into their muscles like a finger puppet it moves them around. Overtime the body will run out of its energy that the fungus eats, this is because it does not have access to other humans to eat.
My favourite part of TLoU's infected is how disturbingly human the early infected seem, and how unnervingly believable the morphing of the human body appears in the later stages. Taking inspiration from the real Cordyceps fungus has made the infection not only more plausible scientifically, but also more believable instinctively
I believe that after the bloater stage (excluding shamblers) the bloater just simply starts to get bigger and more stronger, maybe eventually die out of excessive infection but not sure. the rat king was formed just because the infected present in the area were all hibernating in the same area so they merged together.
@@vksasdgaming9472 Its a possible explanation, the IRL explanation its that is uses your body without touching your head, and grows spores in your skin. so it doesn't make muscles or anything it just gets heavier
@MagentaTabbyFox 3-4 decades? TLOU2 takes place 2.5 decades (25 years) after the outbreak. Normally the clicker is the last stage but if the host is big with a lot of muscles or fat, it'll become a bloater or if it's in a flooded area, it'll become a shambler. Bloaters and shamblers are both 10+ years old. And since the rat king was in ground zero for 25 years, it went into suspended animation while it connected with the clickers and stalker. It was in suspended animation until the moment Qbby stepped into the basement.
I really hate when People put false information a about the tlou lore and infected without source like "100% confirm clickers transform in X months/years...." no , NEVER in both games they say the especific date of any transformation, only vague estimatives, for exemple to quote Joel about the clicker corpse on the door on the downtown building "they are called clickers, are infected for yearS" so could be in the range of 2- to 20 years base on that alone, same for stalkers, a runner is recent infected, but stalker and bloather times are even more vague than the others, so stop spreading misinformation (like that other bs People keep talking "Ellie is not the only immune, its said in the first game" no its not stfu)
Sure. The Adaptation might not be canon, but it's inspired by the canon in the game and its pretty much loyal to it. Believe what you want to believe to be true. Either way, the cordies and its evolutions are still terrifying.
I really don't get how there's more zombies that were infected within a year than there are within 23 years since infection. One would think the biggest infection rates would have been immediately after the initial spread. But all the runners suggest that a whole heap of people were recently infected.
Outbreak day millions got infected …millions died before turning into clickers ..millions left bodies with spores attached..thousands still roamed around trapped in buildings or hibernated ..people need food so they scavenge and get infected by spores which create runners
2:40 this concept is terrifying because of how long it takes to form into a clicker and the fact that through that time there is some form of consciousness in the body
They die when the fungus take all the nourishment from the body. Fungus needs the nutrition too and it is getting them from the host consuming parts of him when there are not many of them resulting in the host death. If the infected are well fed they can survive for a long time.
@@CornPopWazABadDudeactually it’s assumed that sticking to walls is a consequence of dying infected that seek out a place to release spores after death
It’s hard to imagine having your body being taken control of while still being aware and helpless but then I thought it myself, sitting on the toilet to long, your leg starts to go to sleep. You don’t feel like you have control of your leg even when you try. That’s the closest to not having control of your body or body part as it get for a normal healthy person.
i was told that the fungi the cordyceps were based off of, don't kill the brain or damage it as much as it does the body, meaning that although the host is dying, it can still process what's going on, and can still feel everything that's happening to its body, until its organs give out.
The real life inspiration found in ants doesn’t actually affect the brain at all. The fungus actually manages to keep the brain in tact only taking control of muscles, leaving the victim trapped in their own body, while completely uninfected in terms of consciousness. If this is true for humans too, they are likely completely aware of what they’re doing, and who they were until around stage three where the fungus appears to start to attack the brain. This truly adds to the horror, since they aren’t even changed, it’s just as if someone else is in control.
Thats not true, in fact to say the ants brain isnt affected is misleading because, as bugs, they lack what we would formally consider a brain; their neural system is organized pretty differently from mammals and instead have an analog called the central ganglial cluster. The cordiceps does actually interface with their 'brain' chemically as a few studies have shown where that the fungus will migrate to that neural cluster and release proteins into it from the fungus; what exactly is being released and how it functions is still unclear. This allows the fungus to influence the ants motor functions, but as to the ants perception it might be reasonable to assume that it feels like they're being puppeteered
@@333dog a "lot" is an understatement. firstly they have to evolve to our internal body temperature. secondly, they have to evolve to a massive host like a human vs something small like an ant. And of course thirdly, they have to evolve to be able to not only take over something as complex as a mammal nervous system but to also be able to fight off the humans natural strong immune system. so basically this is not possible. technically cordyceps could theoretically do what the last of us shows us but that will never happen
@@333dog wait until you notice what rabies actually is. viruses are the smallest machines in the micro world. plus, unlike normal viruses rabies appears to not follow the logic of survival, and doesn't ever mind killing the host.
Wouldnt runners and stalkers be super rare? If the infection has been going on long enough to form the rat king then I feel like most people would have already been turned a while ago so I feel like it’d make more sense if most of the zombies were the older ones or the dead wall fungus ones (correct me if im wrong please LOL)
I’d say they wouldn’t be too rare, because each stage requires certain environmental conditions to move on to the next stage. Even so, they might be more rare than clickers at the time the show takes place.
I always got the sense most infected are recent. Survivors and hunters that got turned. The vast majority of runners would run out of food and starve, fusing to a wall and producing spores. Those spores are the primary way new people are infected, and the reason that the fungus is difficult to eradicate- you can bomb and kill most of the infected in an area but spores will remain on corpses for years. The part in part two when they find clickers and runners in a bank, infected 20 years prior, isolated without food, but still mulling about is dumb as hell and makes no sense.
@@patmos09 I'm wondering what happened to the mass majority of them, did they die and the fungus dies after some time? That seems like the most probable answer, but it just feels weird to have so many infected disappearing
That crossed my mind too. I figured some of them go into a state of dormancy and if the conditions aren’t just right the fungus takes longer to transform into the next stage.
it depends. some only naturally last a few months. when they’re isolated with no prey or food, they just kinda attach to the walls and become food for the fungus to grow via spores. some only become early stage stalkers before dying, while some can go all the way to clickers. bloaters and shamblers seem to only occur with more heavy set people due to the fact that the fungus can use the excess nutrition from the fat stored, while rat kings only happen when numerous infected are locked in an enclosed space, attach to the walls, and the fungus binds them
Real question is how long can they make the human host last. The spores will always be there, terrifyingly ageless in their patience till they can infect something else. Would be interesting to see some wilder creatures that come from infection time.
I love the design of these zombies, but my only gripe is I find it a little bit unrealistic how they could survive even a few months on their own. Think about it, the fungus controls the brain and human body, it is not like a traditional zombie in that its already dead / undead, they are living people gone insane by the fungus, similar to rabies. So that would mean the human host must be kept alive for the fungus to even have something to control / manipulate, meaning the host must be kept fed and hydrated. Although it is reasonable to assume the early stages like runners or even stalkers can hunt animals or even just find food and water to keep themselves alive, the rapid deuteriation of the body and also the fungus requiring nutrients would be quite demanding to upkeep, especially in a post-apocalyptic world where food and clean water would be scarce. Also although possible, I doubt clickers would last that on their own as their echo-location doesn't seem to be on the level of bats, and without humans being idiots, it can't really scavenge food if it can't see or even smell (as their noise appears to be gone too). Not only that, but you see how dirty the zombies living conditions and general hygiene is, which would be ripe for infection by other diseases which may not only kill the human host depriving the fungus present from using it, but it may also attack the fungus itself like some viruses do. And with all the infected bodies and exposure, I'd imagine it would be incredibly easy for a virus or other disease to develop that directly feeds on the fungus itself, as nature always finds a way to balance itself. Also it is true that maybe the fungus could enhance their immune systems to make the host more durable which could be true, but again, nothing is immune and eventually I could see another disease developing as a counter, that or regular disease will kill off their hosts for the reasons stated above. so although the infected would be a formidable threat early on, after a week or so they would in reality likely starve, lacking the human abilities to use their intuition to find regular human food, or failing to find sufficiently nutrious prey items (animals other than say rodents) in cities, drastically reducing their overall threat level in the grand scheme. Again I love their design and maybe there is an explanation for their long lasting nature that I'm missing, but I'm curious on what people thing.
I think (Take this with a grain of salt) That the infected had fed on other humans and animals to survive and keep their nutrition. As well fungi are known to be used for medicine (Penicillin). So, fighting off other diseases wouldn't be too hard because infected have a good protective shell from diseases and bacteria. Remember animals are still everywhere in the last of us universe and it shouldn't be hard for the infected to find food.
@@Citadel411 penicillin is one particular fungus that can kill bacteria. That doesn’t mean that all fungi can! And ophiocordyceps has a predator species of fungus that preys on it
I assume Bloater take around 5 years minimum (this variant based on the host), because when Tommy left the fireflies around year 2028 and the location he know is UEC, when Joel reach UEC there's a bloater who was a firefly (you can collect his pendant after you kill him) so I guess 5 years minimum? -o-
I got my info from somewhere else but it really depends on the host. There are some clickers that never evolved/grew into bloaters and there are runners that were infected for a few years yet never turned to stalkers. The bank in the Seattle QZ is one example and another would be Hillcrest mechanic garage where Boris locked his neighbors inside to get infected
As someone who didn’t play the video game I was nearly traumatized when I first watched it and now I’m watching videos on the different kinds of infected 😂
The missing decomposition of the bodies bother me. Yes, in the beginning of the show it is mentioned that fungi can produce substances that inhibit bacteria growth. But bacteria have a much higher mutation rate than fungi. They will overcome fungi defense mechanisms, eventually. And because infected "like" to be near each other, any bacteria would spread fast.
I'm on my first playthrough of tLoU Part 1 and I have been thinking there must be some sort of mind link between the infected. The way they swarm it certainly feels like it. Weirdly enough the ones I find easiest to fight are clickers because they are blind. The bloaters are terrifying. I've seen poor Joel's face being torn off an unsettling number of times!
You have 2 answers 1. Stalker stage where the persons consciousness is gone and the fungus has complete control Or 2. Whenever the fungus eats all the nutrients in the body and it collapses and becomes mold on the wall
Yeah but those infected that were underground in this episode were not runners tho. They've been there for a while. Were they all clickers and bloaters?
Yeah, Most of the infected that came from the underground were: Stalkers, Clickers, and a Bloater. There were no Runners under there. Because Runners don't have fungus on their heads.
I really want a four-legged infected in the next game. Like a clicker that can’t echolocate normally because the fungus grows over its mouth, so it instead grows claws and echolocates by tapping the floor with its hands and feet. Combines the blindness of a clicker with the speed of the dog.
I was personally hoping that they would just replace the Bloater’s spores with something tendril-related instead of just removing the spores. Like the bloater being able to connect with the mycelium in the ground to communicate to other infected at will and much quicker.
@@Gemini-Lion I'm scared they'll just completely remove the shamblers from the next season for not knowing how to make them work with the lack of spores
I just found this channel, I can tell you pour a lot of effort into your videos and analysis of something, as well as kept track of your community. You 101% deserve more subs.
in the first episode of the HBO show when Sarah goes into the neighbors house and the old man says help me he is already infected. i cant help but wonder if theres a very early stage of infection where they rely on humanity of others just too get close too them.
I REPLAYEd part 1 a while back and during the early parts of the game, i could faintly hear runners slur words and cry, but a few words i heard was "no no no, i dont want to , i dont want to." "please stop." "help me." such a neat design choise to make runners more tragic than scary..
I suppose it depends on the cordyceps decision cause if u saw the show most infecteds die when they are between phase 2 and 3 and only saw a bloater once and i also think that it depends on how much nutrients the host has since most infecteds die off and little bloaters exist around the world and more mutations comes out probably due to the chemicals the scientists still study on them and outbreaks and theres probably more phases rather than 4 or 5 normal phases
I definitely think bloaters were obese people that had more body tissue for the Cordyceps to consume and therefore have a longer lifespan. What perplexes me, however, is how hordes of infected that presumably turned at the same time manage to be at different stages of infection (e.g., encountering runners, clickers and a bloater in the same building). 🤔
My theory is that the clickers were infected first and the runners in the same building are people the clickers caught and bit later. Maybe the survivors were trying to get thru the building and got caught by surprise, then either turned too fast or were too badly hurt to leave the building and just stayed there as runners.
i know nothing about this except for the fact that there are cordyceps zombies and so every time i see anything about this my brain immediately brings up Leif from Bug Fables
In the game, a host would bud once the body has been used up, releasing spores, however, in the show, the bodies don't release spore, but, they attach to walls to increase the web of the mycelium.
I saw some mistakes but I just want to correct you. 1. The shambler isnt stage 6. This isn't possible as they are weaker than Bloaters but this still makes them an alternate stage 4 to the bloater (If you aren't counting the first bite as an infection. 2. I wouldn't really say the Ratking is an actual stage of infection as there are multiple hosts, not just one singular infected. 3.The bloater takes around a decade (10 years) to go from a clicker to a bloater You can correct me if I am wrong.
something I dont think people realise too often is the fact that the cordyceps does not control the brain. It never did. It actually only controls the muscles around the body, which means that every single infected is aware of everything. The mind is still there, each person hidden behind the fungus, feeling the pain and consciously thinking. Essentially braindead and/or in a coma like state. Which is terrifying.
Most conscious awareness is probably suppressed by the time the runner stage is reached, though interspersed with brief periods of limited and likely terrified and disoriented lucidity. Given the massive behavioral shift by the time the stalker stage is reached, it is probably at that point that full consciousness is no longer possible.
(major ending spoilers below for some who havent played the games!!) studies said that cordecepys doesnt actually effect and attack the brain it latches onto the muscles of its host body and moves said body without control to the brain. which is just horrifying to think, that the virus infects your muscles and youre still you inside. we see in the show how the fungus grows over all the muscle beneath the skin, taking full control and as you said sometimes their expressions are remorseful or sad really drives home that theory which its probably a lot more humane to think "the person isnt there anymore because it infects the brain" but if the theory is that it controls muscle tissue, bones and all then the very ending of the game makes little to no sense with ellie having to have half of her brain removed and joel having to save her from the fireflies. i guess the game and show wanted to make something that was life threatening, and different to better drive in a compelling story as opposed to falling what science has discovered. (i also assume at the time of the games creation this science hadnt been completely exposed either so it could really just be that) i am very curious to see what they do next and how theyre going to explain the ending of the game with their science since its a little different in the show even if not by much
Well I remember around the stages are : 1. The runners : the people who have been recently infected and are still quite fast and agile. 2. Clickers : I this stage the fungus grows tremendously and starts to rip through the hosts head( preferably the face because it is one weakest parts of the skull, not to mention the nose and eye holes ) the host losses the ability of sight and can only hear to be wary of it's environment. 3. Bloaters : like clickers they cannot see but the fungus has started to coat the host's body in a thick hard mushroom that act as some kind of organic armor. 4. Shambler : I myself do not have knowledge of this stage. 5. Self destruction : given the death of the host due to either being naturalized buy humans or rotting overtime the fungus starts to create spores, if they are given the chose of "suicide" they would mostly chose indore areas due to it being easier to grow outside of the person body and lash on to the environment to maximize the spores effective range(but the hbo show replaced it with tendrils that telepathically alert every infected to your location if they are touched or stepped on)
Zombie infections where the host is still conscious always feel more messed up. In Dying Light they take it a step further by making virals (the equivalent of runners, or the first stage of infection) actually speak and plead for their lives as you attack them, really showing how they can't control what their body is doing.
Nah, after the clicker it's wront. Bloaders are people that would be infected, but it also needs to be a big person for it to work. Shamblers are another kind, they develop in humid places and have different development.
I mean technically when all the nerves or a majority of the nerves of the initial body are no longer functional due to rotting or due to the fungus absorbing all the nutrients it can from it as it’s the last source it’d probably take from. But that’s my gamer theory
I thought bloaters and chamblers were essentially the same stage of infected, and chamblers just happened to develop in moisture heavy areas. I also thought it about 10 years before an infected became a bloater or chambler.
There is that part of me that wants to ask, I know fungus exist in all 50 states....but won't a tropical fungus that needs a ton water do horrible in a place like Nevada outside of Las Vegas and Reno and Arizona outside of Phoenix and places like Wyoming and the Dakota where it can get below zero for weeks on end with intense snow storms? I guess that's one of the many many things that bothered me about game 2 is it starts in a blizzard and this fungus meant for warm, wet places, can just waltz through a wyoming snow storm like it's no big deal. same with a place like Arizona when it's those brutal summers of 100+ heat and not a drop of water to be seen.
I think the point that was made in the game is that the fungus mutated to live in more extreme conditions, so now it can live in a human host and in colder/hotter temperatures
Fungal spores can tolerate being frozen and revive. Humans are vector of it's spread that allows it to seek new locations. I think infection makes carriers hardier towards enviromental conditions as they ignore pain from frostbites and all that. My hypothesis is that deserts slow or even stop it's spread because fungi really don't like them. Still not so good idea when every settlement in desert area already has infected inside.
The implication that hosts know exactly what they’re doing but can’t stop is one of the darkest concepts I’ve ever heard. Imagine feasting on your mother or wife or child.
I don’t understand the franchise. If clickers see via echolocation, wouldn’t the sound bounce off anyone even if they were remaining still, giving them away?
1:39 man that'd be horrible in the game. stealth killing a clicker just for like ten more to run up behind you ;-; also this is really cool to listen to
This must be some really exotic strain. If it were anything like the real fungus, the infected would be climbing trees and death-gripping onto the branches. They might do the same with other structures as well.
There's a huge inconsistency in the game and show. If it is true that 1) runners have only been infected for a couple weeks, and 2) infected grow stronger/more dangerous with time; then it makes absolutely no sense why the vast majority of infected are runners, clickers are relatively rare, and bloaters/shamblers are very rare. In the game and show, 20 years have gone by since the infection, so the likelihood of a random infected having been bitten within the last year are slim; therefore almost every infected should be a bloater/shambler, or at least clickers. This is especially true if you consider that most infected must have been bitten in the early years of the outbreak, when humanity wasn't prepared for the virus and population numbers & density were high. As we see on the game/show, 20 years later there are many fewer humans to bite, and those that survived have learned to shelter themselves, avoid infected areas, and spread out to minimise the risk of rapid contagion. It's extremely annoying that the game/show haven't given an explanation for this. It's remains merely a contrivance to keep the game fun and accessible, and the show consistent and affordable. There are many explanations they could have come up with, like saying you remain a runner unless time goes by AND very specific conditions are met (for example: you are genetically strong to allow the fungus to mutate to the next stage, or you bite several humans and that healthy human dna takes your fungus to the next level, or you isolate yourself and the fungus evolves to give you more protection since you're not protected by other infected, or whatever).
Maybe the infection slows down ..but you’re right in part 1 bills town no one has been to the school for 10+ years yet they had runners and clickers..in part 2 ellie opens and locked door and it has runners inside and a a lot of cordecyps all over the walls …I think it’s freak mutation which causes bloaters..
They still can decompose. We see the left overs all over the place. The show added on to this since we see a bunch of dried left over fungus that wasn’t connected to a mycelium network
Solid video, and very accurate to the title - however - I think when people click "When do the infected die" what they really (probably) want to know is when the infected - including its fungus - die? All this to say... maybe an idea for a next video? ;)
Realistically there should be almost no runners by the time the game happens except right outside quarantine zones since there's no supply of 'fresh' humans. After 20 years nearly all the infected should be clickers, if not bloaters. Especially in the show, we're told civilization mostly collapsed within a few days, so that means most humans probably died or got infected 20 years ago. Obviously there's a lot more runners and stalkers for gameplay reasons, but I think it kinda has to be explained as 'some infected remain a runner for years, some don't.'
Have a robust enough immune system to slow down the effects but not enough to fight it off.drags the whole process out especially if there lucky enough not to be killed from things like dehydration.
I’m pretty sure it attacks the muscles, if it’s accurate to actual cordyceps, it attaches to the muscles and organs, not the brain. That’s probably why in the game, you can sometimes hear runners crying and saying things.
The only way to beat TLOU’s virus is either making a serum from ellie’s blood, or making airborne particles that kill the fungi (probably hard to make).
I'd say they die just before becoming a clicker. As the skull gets split open and the brain is replaced with fungus. But runners definitely still have their humanity the majority of the time. You can hear them crying and sometimes even broken speech.
Clearly they form internal nuclear reactors to keep them going. /s It's something zombie shows have to hand wave away. Along with "why don't zombies attack other zombies"? and "why don't zombies freeze during the winter?"
I think the answer can be found in nature .... and that also is the reason why 'runners' become stalkers. Fungus can live both on living tissue (more parasite like) like trees and dead tissue. The runners as the most humanlike so when the brain is still intact for their survival they may eat and hunt for meat or anything they can find. The fungus itself may grown inside the body eating living tissue and grow their own tissue inside the body to become stalkers. The stalkers are more connected to the ground and walls as they can 'eat wood and rotten material' and maybe the reason why they seeminly grow into the wall and their surroundings untill they run out of resources and die ... or become clickers by a disconection between the wall and have to become 'hunters' again.
I wonder if they age, like humans I mean, obviously I can say they do cause the clickers started looking older in the second game, like grey hair and such. But I wonder would child infected grow and age?
Sure you know this by now, but Shamblers have been infected as long as Bloaters, but were in more wet/damp environments, turning them into Shamblers rather than Bloaters.
na man when I was seeing this video I thought this channel would be having like a million subs..3k subs is deffinatly not done
Appreciate it!
@@RocketRiley could you tell me what song you played at 3:44. I really like the way it looks. Especially the repetitive high note.
Reminds me of road trips through Florida during a hurricane. You know? Really grey and gloomy.
Oh. Um yeah just the name. And thank you for the pictures.
And videos. Really helps visualize.
@@mrglubogluberson1912 Yo i found it and its called Guitar (Instrumental) - Lil X Ceferobich
@@enmanuel63 you are appreciated more than you know. THANK YOU😂
Nah bro i with you i thought this guy has 300k or a million but i see the sub
The interesting thing about runners in the game is you often hear them cry. The creators of the game explained that this is due to the mind still being present, and the infected not wanting to act in their urges and crying from despair.
Scary to think about
I've always wondered about a zombie apocalypse where everything below the neck is affected but not the head, allowing speech to still be possible among other things.
it's also accurate to the real life cordyceps fungus's effect on ants!! the fungus will actually attack the muscles of the ant it infects and not the brain, leaving the ant to be fully aware of its final moments :3
@@wolvesbane_and_buttercups ...as much as an ant is self-aware at all, of course
@@Nuneven yeah
The fact that in early stages the host is still self aware just has no control has convinced me even more that in zombie apocalypse always have a way to unalive yourself quickly
the fact?where exactly has that been said/proven because i've only ever heard people like sam speculate what happens no fact to be found anywhere
@@titans2720 I remember playing and hear clicker moan and pick at their fungus. The game never straight up said they were still conscious. But it is heavily implied you just have to pay attention.
@@hawkeyemihawkgettingmoneylord or you could also say they scratch at their face because the fungus can’t properly control the body’s making them act all twitchy and weird. If the person is still conscious inside and can “fight back” then why do they never try to fight back when attacking somebody? Look at every zombie movie they’re all weird and twitchy. The real answer they do that is because the game devs thought it looked creepy and scary when they moved like that 😂
@@titans2720 so you your gonna ignore how I mentioned how they moan like their in pain the vidoe talked about that to? Your clearly not listening and want to believe what you want this is not gonna be a good discussion your mind is already made up peace.
@@titans2720 Although this is not info from the game, the real life cordyceps fungus was found to only infect the body of the insect not the brain implying that it is "trapped in its own body" if the developers knew this they surely would've made it the same in the game cuz aside from being based on reality, just sounds cool for the lore, this is an assumption though
I remember seeing a runner eating what seemed to be someone she knew and was crying while doing so, implying she was aware she was eating her friend/family and was horrified by it but the fungus was forcing her to do it anyways.
Scary to think about
was this seen/heard in the game?? thats so horrifying wtf 😭
@ZAMN! 😻 Yes unfortunately it is, and if you listen closely you can hear the poor woman saying stuff like "No!" And "I don't wanna!" As she gags while eating her friend and or family member... it's genuinely horrific-
@@puffanimates please how can I watch it
@@puffanimates I don’t remember this in the game, which one? 1 or 2?
The bloaters confuse me so much because they stop trying to spread the fungus and just crush and kill potential hosts. They are really cool though.
Clickers and Bloaters don't care about spreading the infection as much as they care about destroying whatever living thing is Infront of them. It could be because they can't see, but it's probably because at that point the Fungus just doesn't care as much.
i always wonder if the strongest man on earth could beat a bloater in a fist fight
@@sun4188 if you need a gun to kill a clicker then you have no chance against a bloater. He will catch you in 2 seconds and even if you manage to hit him his armor will protect him
@@Rageren that is true. i quickly read through an article if real life Cordyceps attack and kill potential hosts and they don’t. Just a neat fun fact.
@@sun4188 Joel definitely couldn’t. I saw a video where this guy tried to melee kill the bloater but he was just infinitely stomping on it
My guess is that if the fungus isn’t provided enough ‘food’ it begins feeding on the host until they’re too weak to go on, from there the ‘fungus’ focuses on latching its dying host against walls to hopefully continue its cycle by infecting those with its spores. So in my opinion, bloaters and clickers are the way they are *because* they’re well fed, because of this, the fungus on them can furthermore mutate and evolve to create stronger variants.
What was that rat mutation infected feeding off tho since there probably wasn't much to eat in the hospital because no one went there
@@MJ-qc9yl Roanoke Gaming made a video about the Rat King and how it might have formed. Since the hospital was probably one of the ground zeroes of the infection, many people were trapped there once a lockdown was issued. The bloater and a few clickers likely laid down at a corner after there was no one to infect anymore, and fused together at some point. You can see in TLOU2 where the bloater likely rested before Abby disturbed it and it went looking for her.
@@MJ-qc9yl Fungus has the ability to grow root and share nutrients with other roots. So the rat king survive by forming alot of infected bodies into one to share nutrients. One can assume that it used to be bigger.
@@winstonsgmxthat's a horrific Implication
@@MJ-qc9yl It still ate itself, but was so massive that it didn't die
I thought both the Shambler and the Rat king where both formed not because of the age of the infected but because of the condition they were in. I believe the game specify that a shambler is just as old as the bloater but because of the wet environment it's in, the thick armor and this mussels fail to form completely that it evolves into another form. Making Shamblers tougher then clickers but still weaker compared to bloaters.
Literally what the video said.
@@antonydandrea that would mean it is not stage 6 though
What I don’t understand is how there are shamblers in Santa Barbara when the climate tends to be hot and dry. Maybe because they’re by the beach but still I doubt that would completely change their evolution like Seattle would
@@antonydandrea nah the video said that shambles were infected for even longer than bloaters, which isn't true since they are as old as bloaters but differently "evolved" due to their environment
@Scott Powell they specify in the game that the rat king formed because it was patient zero in seattle so it had a long time to develop
when the fungus go's to far and the host body collapses is the answer
Reasonable yes I think maybe idk me just want to talk
OWEWE
Or when something called "Bullets" gets inside of it, thats also an answer
@@dr.consumerock6798 Accelerated lead poisoning is the cause of dead
@@dr.consumerock6798 or a few delicious fire gassed cocktails. Love the flames that burn them
The fungus can’t go to far, if you did not know the reason that the clickers are erratic, is because the fungus has spread out and into their muscles like a finger puppet it moves them around. Overtime the body will run out of its energy that the fungus eats, this is because it does not have access to other humans to eat.
My favourite part of TLoU's infected is how disturbingly human the early infected seem, and how unnervingly believable the morphing of the human body appears in the later stages.
Taking inspiration from the real Cordyceps fungus has made the infection not only more plausible scientifically, but also more believable instinctively
Agreed
My favourite element of the game, which was completely skipped on the show 🤦♂
@@mlekoxd2469 i'd say the show still has it ???
I believe that after the bloater stage (excluding shamblers) the bloater just simply starts to get bigger and more stronger, maybe eventually die out of excessive infection but not sure. the rat king was formed just because the infected present in the area were all hibernating in the same area so they merged together.
It might also grow so thickly armored that human muscles can no longer propel it around and it just sits there.
@@vksasdgaming9472 Its a possible explanation, the IRL explanation its that is uses your body without touching your head, and grows spores in your skin. so it doesn't make muscles or anything it just gets heavier
I agree because in the tunnel in Tlou the one of the bloaters has extra fungal growth on its body
Runners: 0 - 2 weeks
Stalkers: 2 weeks - 1 year
Clickers: 1 year - 20 years
Bloaters/shamblers: 20+ years
Clickers 1 - 10 years
Bloater 10+ years
Bloater 5+
@MagentaTabbyFox 3-4 decades? TLOU2 takes place 2.5 decades (25 years) after the outbreak. Normally the clicker is the last stage but if the host is big with a lot of muscles or fat, it'll become a bloater or if it's in a flooded area, it'll become a shambler. Bloaters and shamblers are both 10+ years old. And since the rat king was in ground zero for 25 years, it went into suspended animation while it connected with the clickers and stalker. It was in suspended animation until the moment Qbby stepped into the basement.
I really hate when People put false information a about the tlou lore and infected without source like "100% confirm clickers transform in X months/years...." no , NEVER in both games they say the especific date of any transformation, only vague estimatives, for exemple to quote Joel about the clicker corpse on the door on the downtown building "they are called clickers, are infected for yearS" so could be in the range of 2- to 20 years base on that alone, same for stalkers, a runner is recent infected, but stalker and bloather times are even more vague than the others, so stop spreading misinformation (like that other bs People keep talking "Ellie is not the only immune, its said in the first game" no its not stfu)
Sure. The Adaptation might not be canon, but it's inspired by the canon in the game and its pretty much loyal to it. Believe what you want to believe to be true. Either way, the cordies and its evolutions are still terrifying.
I really don't get how there's more zombies that were infected within a year than there are within 23 years since infection. One would think the biggest infection rates would have been immediately after the initial spread. But all the runners suggest that a whole heap of people were recently infected.
That's what always confused me in the game.
Yes, so what causes the various 'types' would have the be environmental factors or random chance, rather than some kind of life cycle.
Outbreak day millions got infected …millions died before turning into clickers ..millions left bodies with spores attached..thousands still roamed around trapped in buildings or hibernated ..people need food so they scavenge and get infected by spores which create runners
in game too, like theres areas underground with tons of runners, when in reality they all should been clickers at that point
The fungus only develops further when theres enough resources, thats why so many people get stuck in the runner stage
2:40 this concept is terrifying because of how long it takes to form into a clicker and the fact that through that time there is some form of consciousness in the body
They die when the fungus take all the nourishment from the body. Fungus needs the nutrition too and it is getting them from the host consuming parts of him when there are not many of them resulting in the host death. If the infected are well fed they can survive for a long time.
Wrong. They die with they get stuck to the wall looking like they took a giant splooge to the face.
@@CornPopWazABadDudeactually it’s assumed that sticking to walls is a consequence of dying infected that seek out a place to release spores after death
It’s hard to imagine having your body being taken control of while still being aware and helpless but then I thought it myself, sitting on the toilet to long, your leg starts to go to sleep. You don’t feel like you have control of your leg even when you try. That’s the closest to not having control of your body or body part as it get for a normal healthy person.
1:03 Left 4 Dead be like:
Your not wrong
i was told that the fungi the cordyceps were based off of, don't kill the brain or damage it as much as it does the body, meaning that although the host is dying, it can still process what's going on, and can still feel everything that's happening to its body, until its organs give out.
The real life inspiration found in ants doesn’t actually affect the brain at all. The fungus actually manages to keep the brain in tact only taking control of muscles, leaving the victim trapped in their own body, while completely uninfected in terms of consciousness. If this is true for humans too, they are likely completely aware of what they’re doing, and who they were until around stage three where the fungus appears to start to attack the brain. This truly adds to the horror, since they aren’t even changed, it’s just as if someone else is in control.
headcrabs from the half life
Thats not true, in fact to say the ants brain isnt affected is misleading because, as bugs, they lack what we would formally consider a brain; their neural system is organized pretty differently from mammals and instead have an analog called the central ganglial cluster. The cordiceps does actually interface with their 'brain' chemically as a few studies have shown where that the fungus will migrate to that neural cluster and release proteins into it from the fungus; what exactly is being released and how it functions is still unclear. This allows the fungus to influence the ants motor functions, but as to the ants perception it might be reasonable to assume that it feels like they're being puppeteered
@@TheSquidofCreation interesting, could this suggest that Cordyceps is likely going to have to adapt a lot to infect humans? Thank you for the info.
@@333dog a "lot" is an understatement. firstly they have to evolve to our internal body temperature. secondly, they have to evolve to a massive host like a human vs something small like an ant. And of course thirdly, they have to evolve to be able to not only take over something as complex as a mammal nervous system but to also be able to fight off the humans natural strong immune system. so basically this is not possible. technically cordyceps could theoretically do what the last of us shows us but that will never happen
@@333dog wait until you notice what rabies actually is. viruses are the smallest machines in the micro world. plus, unlike normal viruses rabies appears to not follow the logic of survival, and doesn't ever mind killing the host.
Wouldnt runners and stalkers be super rare? If the infection has been going on long enough to form the rat king then I feel like most people would have already been turned a while ago so I feel like it’d make more sense if most of the zombies were the older ones or the dead wall fungus ones (correct me if im wrong please LOL)
I’d say they wouldn’t be too rare, because each stage requires certain environmental conditions to move on to the next stage. Even so, they might be more rare than clickers at the time the show takes place.
I always got the sense most infected are recent. Survivors and hunters that got turned. The vast majority of runners would run out of food and starve, fusing to a wall and producing spores. Those spores are the primary way new people are infected, and the reason that the fungus is difficult to eradicate- you can bomb and kill most of the infected in an area but spores will remain on corpses for years.
The part in part two when they find clickers and runners in a bank, infected 20 years prior, isolated without food, but still mulling about is dumb as hell and makes no sense.
@@patmos09 I'm wondering what happened to the mass majority of them, did they die and the fungus dies after some time? That seems like the most probable answer, but it just feels weird to have so many infected disappearing
@@patmos09 the infected could have just stumbled into the bank years later like Ellie and Dina did
That crossed my mind too. I figured some of them go into a state of dormancy and if the conditions aren’t just right the fungus takes longer to transform into the next stage.
it depends. some only naturally last a few months. when they’re isolated with no prey or food, they just kinda attach to the walls and become food for the fungus to grow via spores. some only become early stage stalkers before dying, while some can go all the way to clickers. bloaters and shamblers seem to only occur with more heavy set people due to the fact that the fungus can use the excess nutrition from the fat stored, while rat kings only happen when numerous infected are locked in an enclosed space, attach to the walls, and the fungus binds them
Real question is how long can they make the human host last. The spores will always be there, terrifyingly ageless in their patience till they can infect something else. Would be interesting to see some wilder creatures that come from infection time.
hmm interesting way of looking at it🤣
I mean the human dies at the third stage/clicker, rendering the body as nothing but a husk for fungus
I love the design of these zombies, but my only gripe is I find it a little bit unrealistic how they could survive even a few months on their own. Think about it, the fungus controls the brain and human body, it is not like a traditional zombie in that its already dead / undead, they are living people gone insane by the fungus, similar to rabies. So that would mean the human host must be kept alive for the fungus to even have something to control / manipulate, meaning the host must be kept fed and hydrated. Although it is reasonable to assume the early stages like runners or even stalkers can hunt animals or even just find food and water to keep themselves alive, the rapid deuteriation of the body and also the fungus requiring nutrients would be quite demanding to upkeep, especially in a post-apocalyptic world where food and clean water would be scarce. Also although possible, I doubt clickers would last that on their own as their echo-location doesn't seem to be on the level of bats, and without humans being idiots, it can't really scavenge food if it can't see or even smell (as their noise appears to be gone too).
Not only that, but you see how dirty the zombies living conditions and general hygiene is, which would be ripe for infection by other diseases which may not only kill the human host depriving the fungus present from using it, but it may also attack the fungus itself like some viruses do. And with all the infected bodies and exposure, I'd imagine it would be incredibly easy for a virus or other disease to develop that directly feeds on the fungus itself, as nature always finds a way to balance itself.
Also it is true that maybe the fungus could enhance their immune systems to make the host more durable which could be true, but again, nothing is immune and eventually I could see another disease developing as a counter, that or regular disease will kill off their hosts for the reasons stated above.
so although the infected would be a formidable threat early on, after a week or so they would in reality likely starve, lacking the human abilities to use their intuition to find regular human food, or failing to find sufficiently nutrious prey items (animals other than say rodents) in cities, drastically reducing their overall threat level in the grand scheme.
Again I love their design and maybe there is an explanation for their long lasting nature that I'm missing, but I'm curious on what people thing.
That might be a good question for the show runners!
They are not 28 days later infected, the fungus preserve the host. Had it the case, cordyceps would be eradicated by timespan of Tlou
I think (Take this with a grain of salt) That the infected had fed on other humans and animals to survive and keep their nutrition. As well fungi are known to be used for medicine (Penicillin). So, fighting off other diseases wouldn't be too hard because infected have a good protective shell from diseases and bacteria. Remember animals are still everywhere in the last of us universe and it shouldn't be hard for the infected to find food.
Something that is actually funny to me - despite Cordyceps parasitizing on ants, Cordyceps then has parasitic funguses that parasitizes it in return.
@@Citadel411 penicillin is one particular fungus that can kill bacteria. That doesn’t mean that all fungi can! And ophiocordyceps has a predator species of fungus that preys on it
I assume Bloater take around 5 years minimum (this variant based on the host), because when Tommy left the fireflies around year 2028 and the location he know is UEC, when Joel reach UEC there's a bloater who was a firefly (you can collect his pendant after you kill him) so I guess 5 years minimum? -o-
Yeah and clicker form in a year stalker in days week
I got my info from somewhere else but it really depends on the host. There are some clickers that never evolved/grew into bloaters and there are runners that were infected for a few years yet never turned to stalkers. The bank in the Seattle QZ is one example and another would be Hillcrest mechanic garage where Boris locked his neighbors inside to get infected
Wait, THATS where the missing pendant is!
As someone who didn’t play the video game I was nearly traumatized when I first watched it and now I’m watching videos on the different kinds of infected 😂
There's a whole lot of lore out there on TLOU!
The missing decomposition of the bodies bother me. Yes, in the beginning of the show it is mentioned that fungi can produce substances that inhibit bacteria growth. But bacteria have a much higher mutation rate than fungi. They will overcome fungi defense mechanisms, eventually. And because infected "like" to be near each other, any bacteria would spread fast.
true
4:13 yayy she did a spin!
I'm on my first playthrough of tLoU Part 1 and I have been thinking there must be some sort of mind link between the infected. The way they swarm it certainly feels like it.
Weirdly enough the ones I find easiest to fight are clickers because they are blind. The bloaters are terrifying. I've seen poor Joel's face being torn off an unsettling number of times!
it actually makes it kind of sad when you think about how the people turning infected can still feel the pain and are suffering
10/10 bud thank you
This is my first video of yours I’ve seen and I’ll definitely be bingeing you’re videos
Appreciate it!
Suprised that your channel only has 3,96K subs. With these types of videos and editing you'll do great!
Thanks!
Seeing a tlou video witth the gears of war ost is hilarious xD good video man!
You have 2 answers
1. Stalker stage where the persons consciousness is gone and the fungus has complete control
Or
2. Whenever the fungus eats all the nutrients in the body and it collapses and becomes mold on the wall
Yeah but those infected that were underground in this episode were not runners tho. They've been there for a while. Were they all clickers and bloaters?
Stalkers
They were all clickers. If you watched all the infected that Joel shot and Ellie stabbed they were all clickers
Yeah, Most of the infected that came from the underground were: Stalkers, Clickers, and a Bloater. There were no Runners under there. Because Runners don't have fungus on their heads.
I really want a four-legged infected in the next game. Like a clicker that can’t echolocate normally because the fungus grows over its mouth, so it instead grows claws and echolocates by tapping the floor with its hands and feet.
Combines the blindness of a clicker with the speed of the dog.
Licker!?
I was personally hoping that they would just replace the Bloater’s spores with something tendril-related instead of just removing the spores. Like the bloater being able to connect with the mycelium in the ground to communicate to other infected at will and much quicker.
That would have been pretty cool
Here's to hoping that they think of this for the Shambler..
@@Gemini-Lion I'm scared they'll just completely remove the shamblers from the next season for not knowing how to make them work with the lack of spores
@@martinherrera25 Or even for the sake of simplicity, so they don’t need to explain how shamblers work
I just found this channel, I can tell you pour a lot of effort into your videos and analysis of something, as well as kept track of your community. You 101% deserve more subs.
Much appreciated!
"Are you Challenging me?"
3:39
heavy exposure to water from the constant rain in Seattle caused clickers to change into shamblers instead of bloaters.
Sometimes if the host is too weak it will kill the host and use the corpse to either release spores or infect the surrounding area with the fungus
in the first episode of the HBO show when Sarah goes into the neighbors house and the old man says help me he is already infected. i cant help but wonder if theres a very early stage of infection where they rely on humanity of others just too get close too them.
he likely didn't know it was infectious, nor did anyone else, so naturally the first thing you do is ask for help
I REPLAYEd part 1 a while back and during the early parts of the game, i could faintly hear runners slur words and cry, but a few words i heard was "no no no, i dont want to , i dont want to." "please stop." "help me." such a neat design choise to make runners more tragic than scary..
"While a host body size and height also determend its life span"
Me: oh so can we just say the rat king is Nico avocado
If the fungus got nikocado avocado it would have gotten like 30 phases
I suppose it depends on the cordyceps decision cause if u saw the show most infecteds die when they are between phase 2 and 3 and only saw a bloater once and i also think that it depends on how much nutrients the host has since most infecteds die off and little bloaters exist around the world and more mutations comes out probably due to the chemicals the scientists still study on them and outbreaks and theres probably more phases rather than 4 or 5 normal phases
I definitely think bloaters were obese people that had more body tissue for the Cordyceps to consume and therefore have a longer lifespan.
What perplexes me, however, is how hordes of infected that presumably turned at the same time manage to be at different stages of infection (e.g., encountering runners, clickers and a bloater in the same building). 🤔
Environmental factors? Like moisture or light etc?
@@norwaeethe question mentions "same building", which implies similar conditions.
Maybe some were able to hide longer than others or people tried to travel somewhere else, only to be caught by the infected
My theory is that the clickers were infected first and the runners in the same building are people the clickers caught and bit later. Maybe the survivors were trying to get thru the building and got caught by surprise, then either turned too fast or were too badly hurt to leave the building and just stayed there as runners.
game design
it's crazy that they made runners still somewhat mentally sentient whilstt the cordyceps is slowly taking control of their body
i know nothing about this except for the fact that there are cordyceps zombies and so every time i see anything about this my brain immediately brings up Leif from Bug Fables
In the game, a host would bud once the body has been used up, releasing spores, however, in the show, the bodies don't release spore, but, they attach to walls to increase the web of the mycelium.
This kind of content deserves a sub
I saw some mistakes but I just want to correct you.
1. The shambler isnt stage 6. This isn't possible as they are weaker than Bloaters but this still makes them an alternate stage 4 to the bloater (If you aren't counting the first bite as an infection.
2. I wouldn't really say the Ratking is an actual stage of infection as there are multiple hosts, not just one singular infected.
3.The bloater takes around a decade (10 years) to go from a clicker to a bloater
You can correct me if I am wrong.
Can we get this man to 30k? This dude obviously deserves it
hello just saying new subscriber love your content!
Welcome to the channel!
something I dont think people realise too often is the fact that the cordyceps does not control the brain. It never did. It actually only controls the muscles around the body, which means that every single infected is aware of everything. The mind is still there, each person hidden behind the fungus, feeling the pain and consciously thinking. Essentially braindead and/or in a coma like state. Which is terrifying.
Most conscious awareness is probably suppressed by the time the runner stage is reached, though interspersed with brief periods of limited and likely terrified and disoriented lucidity. Given the massive behavioral shift by the time the stalker stage is reached, it is probably at that point that full consciousness is no longer possible.
Always enjoy videos like these when discussing infected subjects in sci-fi and horror content. Good video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
They don't like the direct sunlight it burns them up and dries them out
Very well put together video. Liked and subbed. Keep it up!
Thanks!
(major ending spoilers below for some who havent played the games!!)
studies said that cordecepys doesnt actually effect and attack the brain it latches onto the muscles of its host body and moves said body without control to the brain. which is just horrifying to think, that the virus infects your muscles and youre still you inside. we see in the show how the fungus grows over all the muscle beneath the skin, taking full control and as you said sometimes their expressions are remorseful or sad really drives home that theory
which its probably a lot more humane to think "the person isnt there anymore because it infects the brain" but if the theory is that it controls muscle tissue, bones and all then the very ending of the game makes little to no sense with ellie having to have half of her brain removed and joel having to save her from the fireflies. i guess the game and show wanted to make something that was life threatening, and different to better drive in a compelling story as opposed to falling what science has discovered. (i also assume at the time of the games creation this science hadnt been completely exposed either so it could really just be that) i am very curious to see what they do next and how theyre going to explain the ending of the game with their science since its a little different in the show even if not by much
Great job with this. Thanks! 🤘
Rock on!
I think it’s sad that the infected before they turn into a clicker they can see the damage they are doing but can’t do anything to stop it
How come zombies can literally rip someone’s arm off, but I can barely lift 1.5 kg of potatos.
The most terrifying for me are the stalkers. Proximity mines were my best friends while tackling them.
Well I remember around the stages are :
1. The runners : the people who have been recently infected and are still quite fast and agile.
2. Clickers : I this stage the fungus grows tremendously and starts to rip through the hosts head( preferably the face because it is one weakest parts of the skull, not to mention the nose and eye holes ) the host losses the ability of sight and can only hear to be wary of it's environment.
3. Bloaters : like clickers they cannot see but the fungus has started to coat the host's body in a thick hard mushroom that act as some kind of organic armor.
4. Shambler : I myself do not have knowledge of this stage.
5. Self destruction : given the death of the host due to either being naturalized buy humans or rotting overtime the fungus starts to create spores, if they are given the chose of "suicide" they would mostly chose indore areas due to it being easier to grow outside of the person body and lash on to the environment to maximize the spores effective range(but the hbo show replaced it with tendrils that telepathically alert every infected to your location if they are touched or stepped on)
I had a dream about getting infected and when I woke up, I was shaking a bunch…this was today.
Zombie infections where the host is still conscious always feel more messed up. In Dying Light they take it a step further by making virals (the equivalent of runners, or the first stage of infection) actually speak and plead for their lives as you attack them, really showing how they can't control what their body is doing.
love the infected pokemon evolution thumbnail
Thanks lol
"killing the braincells"
the moment i've heard that i tought "twitter."
in the last of us 3 will be a 10 stages of infected that infected will destroy buildings.
Very good video.
Detailed. Explained a lot. Thanks.
Glad you liked it
Nah, after the clicker it's wront. Bloaders are people that would be infected, but it also needs to be a big person for it to work. Shamblers are another kind, they develop in humid places and have different development.
If the outbreak happened 20 years ago then I'd definitely expect more clickers and bloaters
1:20 man, i'm a runner every morning i wake up
I mean technically when all the nerves or a majority of the nerves of the initial body are no longer functional due to rotting or due to the fungus absorbing all the nutrients it can from it as it’s the last source it’d probably take from. But that’s my gamer theory
I thought bloaters and chamblers were essentially the same stage of infected, and chamblers just happened to develop in moisture heavy areas. I also thought it about 10 years before an infected became a bloater or chambler.
The fungus infection acts like Tik Tok, slowly killing my braincells too
3:50 I wish that was in the game or show it looks sick
There is that part of me that wants to ask, I know fungus exist in all 50 states....but won't a tropical fungus that needs a ton water do horrible in a place like Nevada outside of Las Vegas and Reno and Arizona outside of Phoenix and places like Wyoming and the Dakota where it can get below zero for weeks on end with intense snow storms? I guess that's one of the many many things that bothered me about game 2 is it starts in a blizzard and this fungus meant for warm, wet places, can just waltz through a wyoming snow storm like it's no big deal. same with a place like Arizona when it's those brutal summers of 100+ heat and not a drop of water to be seen.
I think the point that was made in the game is that the fungus mutated to live in more extreme conditions, so now it can live in a human host and in colder/hotter temperatures
Fungal spores can tolerate being frozen and revive. Humans are vector of it's spread that allows it to seek new locations. I think infection makes carriers hardier towards enviromental conditions as they ignore pain from frostbites and all that. My hypothesis is that deserts slow or even stop it's spread because fungi really don't like them. Still not so good idea when every settlement in desert area already has infected inside.
The implication that hosts know exactly what they’re doing but can’t stop is one of the darkest concepts I’ve ever heard. Imagine feasting on your mother or wife or child.
I don’t understand the franchise. If clickers see via echolocation, wouldn’t the sound bounce off anyone even if they were remaining still, giving them away?
Maybe they aren't smart enough to realize the idle thing is alive, therefore they only attack if something moves
@@lau9889 ohhh. Like they’d think you’re part of the environment, like a piece of furniture or some other object. Thanks for the input!
1:39 man that'd be horrible in the game. stealth killing a clicker just for like ten more to run up behind you ;-; also this is really cool to listen to
the quality in a channel this is small is extremely good
Thanks!
This must be some really exotic strain. If it were anything like the real fungus, the infected would be climbing trees and death-gripping onto the branches. They might do the same with other structures as well.
There's a huge inconsistency in the game and show. If it is true that 1) runners have only been infected for a couple weeks, and 2) infected grow stronger/more dangerous with time; then it makes absolutely no sense why the vast majority of infected are runners, clickers are relatively rare, and bloaters/shamblers are very rare.
In the game and show, 20 years have gone by since the infection, so the likelihood of a random infected having been bitten within the last year are slim; therefore almost every infected should be a bloater/shambler, or at least clickers. This is especially true if you consider that most infected must have been bitten in the early years of the outbreak, when humanity wasn't prepared for the virus and population numbers & density were high. As we see on the game/show, 20 years later there are many fewer humans to bite, and those that survived have learned to shelter themselves, avoid infected areas, and spread out to minimise the risk of rapid contagion.
It's extremely annoying that the game/show haven't given an explanation for this. It's remains merely a contrivance to keep the game fun and accessible, and the show consistent and affordable. There are many explanations they could have come up with, like saying you remain a runner unless time goes by AND very specific conditions are met (for example: you are genetically strong to allow the fungus to mutate to the next stage, or you bite several humans and that healthy human dna takes your fungus to the next level, or you isolate yourself and the fungus evolves to give you more protection since you're not protected by other infected, or whatever).
Maybe the infection slows down ..but you’re right in part 1 bills town no one has been to the school for 10+ years yet they had runners and clickers..in part 2 ellie opens and locked door and it has runners inside and a a lot of cordecyps all over the walls …I think it’s freak mutation which causes bloaters..
I feel like this is the only infected that can’t decompose during weather exposure
They still can decompose. We see the left overs all over the place. The show added on to this since we see a bunch of dried left over fungus that wasn’t connected to a mycelium network
This video deserves way more subs
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Buen video Riley
Thanks!
The RatKing isn’t actually a stage of the evolution of the infection it’s a special infected that is an extremely special case
The infected usually lose consciousness within the first months of the stalker stage
Solid video, and very accurate to the title - however - I think when people click "When do the infected die" what they really (probably) want to know is when the infected - including its fungus - die?
All this to say... maybe an idea for a next video? ;)
Realistically there should be almost no runners by the time the game happens except right outside quarantine zones since there's no supply of 'fresh' humans. After 20 years nearly all the infected should be clickers, if not bloaters. Especially in the show, we're told civilization mostly collapsed within a few days, so that means most humans probably died or got infected 20 years ago.
Obviously there's a lot more runners and stalkers for gameplay reasons, but I think it kinda has to be explained as 'some infected remain a runner for years, some don't.'
Have a robust enough immune system to slow down the effects but not enough to fight it off.drags the whole process out especially if there lucky enough not to be killed from things like dehydration.
I’m pretty sure it attacks the muscles, if it’s accurate to actual cordyceps, it attaches to the muscles and organs, not the brain. That’s probably why in the game, you can sometimes hear runners crying and saying things.
That's where people get lost, they aren't trying to feed, they are trying to reproduce.
The part with the runner of how they can be alerted with just one thing, this kind of reminds me of Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2
The only way to beat TLOU’s virus is either making a serum from ellie’s blood, or making airborne particles that kill the fungi (probably hard to make).
I'd say they die just before becoming a clicker. As the skull gets split open and the brain is replaced with fungus. But runners definitely still have their humanity the majority of the time. You can hear them crying and sometimes even broken speech.
What do they eat to sustain if they last so long? I never understood that.
Clearly they form internal nuclear reactors to keep them going. /s
It's something zombie shows have to hand wave away. Along with "why don't zombies attack other zombies"? and "why don't zombies freeze during the winter?"
I think the answer can be found in nature .... and that also is the reason why 'runners' become stalkers. Fungus can live both on living tissue (more parasite like) like trees and dead tissue. The runners as the most humanlike so when the brain is still intact for their survival they may eat and hunt for meat or anything they can find. The fungus itself may grown inside the body eating living tissue and grow their own tissue inside the body to become stalkers. The stalkers are more connected to the ground and walls as they can 'eat wood and rotten material' and maybe the reason why they seeminly grow into the wall and their surroundings untill they run out of resources and die ... or become clickers by a disconection between the wall and have to become 'hunters' again.
Do you know what the definition of a parasite is?
If you do then i don't have to answer this question.
Also they can just hunt and eat people/animals.
Based on the thumbnail it appears to go Stalker > Clicker > Bloater > the Pokemon Graveler.
Honestly it does look like that lol
I wonder if they age, like humans I mean, obviously I can say they do cause the clickers started looking older in the second game, like grey hair and such. But I wonder would child infected grow and age?
I'd say probably not, since the fungus is feeding on the body, it probably would stop growing as nutrition goes elsewhere.
Sure you know this by now, but Shamblers have been infected as long as Bloaters, but were in more wet/damp environments, turning them into Shamblers rather than Bloaters.
“when do the infected die?”
when they see joel 💀
Accurate
bro teaches me better than my science teacher
Lol thanks I guess?