reflected in how the infected communicate with each other like the games clickers become blind after time eventually becoming reliant on sound to track their prey we see this for the first time in episode 2 when joel ellie and tess reach the museum when things go awry after ellie blows their cover prior to this scene however unlike the games were shown how the tendrils of grounded clickers grow into the earth whereby a network of plantlike roots connects the infected across huge distances again by way of vibration and sound at one point joel shoots an aggressive clicker near the museum which alerts a horde of others elsewhere to his exact location its a cool twist on the source material that i think wouldve worked really well in the games enemies magically knowing my exact location is one of my biggest bugbears in games across the board and while the last of us is far from the biggest offender in this space i do remember losing the rag more than once in the first game the flooded tunnels when the floor collapses in the university and that bit when you kick start a generator and need to peg it to the floor above and out through a security door in all of these moments no matter if you sneak or slink or sprint enemies can wind up knowing exactly where you are no matter how you play it its frustrating and immersionbreaking because it steals autonomy from the playersquare rootsimage credit naughty dogbut what i find irritating is when a game shows me how to play gives me the tools to succeed and then flips the script without context or explanation it invariably feels unfair and pulls me out of the momentto be clear i dont have an issue with being stalked by enemies as a means of ramping up difficulty or tension especially in horror games and dopey nonreactive ai can be just as infuriating but what i find irritating is when a game shows me how to play gives me the tools to succeed and then flips the script without context or explanation it invariably feels unfair and pulls me out of the moment if clickers rely on sound to track my location how come this doesnt apply in the above scenarios and why cant they hear me choking out their pals or the thud of their lifeless bodies as they hit the ground mere meters away again there are plenty of games where this is more of an issue than in the last of us but i was really taken by the roots network idea posed in the hbo show for me this circumvents the problem and i think itd have been such a cool addition to the games itd have made certain parts of the games far more challenging but at least doing so would have maintained consistency especially in those moments where youre forced to think on your feet