People now pay to walk through a pitch black recreation of a fungal quarantine zone at Universal Studios, which says a lot about the cultural gravity of The Last of Us. This deep dive follows the franchise from a risky secret project at Naughty Dog, code named Project Thing, through a sequel that intentionally alienated part of its audience, a failed feature film, an Emmy nominated HBO series, and a multimedia footprint of more than 37 million copies sold.

We look at the real cordyceps fungus that inspired the infected and the clickers, the story of Joel and Ellie and the morally gray hospital ending, the Left Behind expansion, and how Part 2 forced players to inhabit Abby, the daughter of the surgeon Joel killed. We also unpack why Sony's blockbuster movie plans with Sam Raimi stalled, why television was the right format for the story's qu ...