while its generally expected that the last of us hbo show will be faithful to the games were now learning of a fairly significant change the creators felt was necessary for the sake of realismin a new interview with comicbook series cocreator craig mazin revealed that in the tv series the fungus that turns human beings into flesheating monsters wont spread through the air like it does in the gamesobviously there are some big things that we know were keeping of course but then there are challenges from the game to the show that had to be considered mazin said for instance little things like the spores in the game there are these where you encounter spores and you need to put a gas mask on in the world that were creating if we put spores in the air it would be pretty clear that they would spread around everywhere and everybody would have to wear a mask all the time and probably everybody would be completely infected by that point so we challenged ourselves to come up with an interesting new way for the fungus to spread but mostly i think we just connected with the soul and spirit of the game he as the creator of the game and me as a fan of the game we were caretakers on behalf of all the fans but also on behalf of all the people who havent played the game who need a television experience that is holistic and connected to itself and doesnt feel like you need to play a game to understandthe discourse around hbos adaptation of the last of us specifically with regards to how closely it sticks to the games has been loud these last couple of weeks recently the last of us director and the tv series cocreator neil druckmann told our sister publication sfx that the adaptation tones down the violence but a couple days later he said it would be the best most authentic game adaptation then earlier this week he said the last of us show wouldnt hit the same snaggles as game of thrones did in its final few seasons because it wont diverge from the games storyhowever in subtle contrast the shows cocreator craig mazin has let slip a couple of the ways the show differs from the games in addition to this new detail about the spores he said just a couple of days ago that hbo is telling more story and that there is so much inbetweenin the grand scheme of things and especially compared to a show like game of thrones a tweak like the one mazin teased today is pretty mild theres still no indication the last of us series wont be faithful to the original story and frankly its unsurprising that theyre adding onto and gently conforming the source material for a completely new formathere are all of the new tv shows of 2023 to look forward to