You’re crouched behind a rusted-out minivan in a flooded Pittsburgh street. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Then, you hear it—that rapid-fire, wet rattling that sounds like a woodpecker made of human bone. Your stomach drops. If you’ve played Naughty Dog’s masterpiece, the clicker last of us sound isn’t just an audio file. It’s a physical sensation of dread.
Honestly, it’s one of the few sounds in gaming that can make a grown adult sweat through their shirt. But how did they actually make it? Most people think it’s just a heavily filtered animal growl or some clever synth work. The reality is way more interesting—and a lot more "human" than you’d probably like to believe.
The voices behind the fungal nightmares
When Naughty Dog was building the first game back in 2009, they didn't just go to a sound library and search for "scary monster." They needed something that felt biological. Something that felt like a human being was being puppeted by a parasite.
The iconic clicker last of us sound was originated by voice actress Misty Lee. She’s basically a legend in the industry, and she didn't use any fancy tech to get that base sound. She did it with her own throat. During her audition, she started experimenting with these weird, staccato vocal fry noises and sharp intakes of breath. It wasn't a scream; it was a malfunction.
Phil Kovats, the audio lead for the first game, loved it so much that he actually figured out how to do it himself. Between the two of them, they voiced nearly every clicker in the franchise. When the HBO series came around in 2023, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann knew they couldn’t just "re-create" that sound with new actors. They brought Misty Lee and Phil Kovats back to reprise their roles.
💡 You might also like: All Barn Locations Forza Horizon 5: What Most People Get Wrong
Think about that for a second. Even with a massive HBO budget and the best Foley artists in Hollywood, they still needed the original humans to make those specific, guttural rattles.
Is it actually echolocation?
The lore tells us that Clickers have been infected for so long that the Cordyceps fungus has literally split their skulls open. They’re blind. To get around, they use a form of biological sonar. In theory, that's what the clicking is for—it's them "seeing" the world through sound waves bouncing off the walls (and your face).
But if we’re being real, the science is a bit "video gamey."
- Real-world echolocation: Humans can actually do this! Blind individuals like Daniel Kish have mastered "flash sonar" by clicking their tongues to navigate.
- The Clicker version: In the game, you can stay perfectly still and the Clicker won't see you. If they were truly using high-fidelity echolocation like a bat, your stationary body would still reflect sound waves. They'd "see" a human-shaped lump in the middle of the room.
The developers have admitted that the clicker last of us sound serves two masters: the lore of the world and the mechanics of a stealth game. If they were 100% scientifically accurate, the game would be impossible. You’d be dead the moment you entered the room.
📖 Related: When Was Monopoly Invented: The Truth About Lizzie Magie and the Parker Brothers
How the sound was "cooked" in post-production
While the human voice is the soul of the Clicker, the final sound you hear in your headphones is a layered lasagna of grossness. The audio team didn't just stop at Misty Lee's vocal cords. They needed to make it sound "wet" and "crunchy."
- The Base: Misty Lee and Phil Kovats providing the rhythmic throat clicks.
- The Crunch: They layered in sounds of breaking wood and snapping celery to simulate the fungal plates shifting.
- The Biological Wetness: Imagine the sound of someone stirring a bowl of mac and cheese, but with more "squelch." They used various Foley techniques—think oranges being squeezed or wet rags being slapped—to give the impression of living, rotting tissue.
- The Processing: They used pitch-shifting to make the sounds feel slightly "off." It’s just high enough to be grating and just low enough to vibrate in your chest.
The result is something that triggers a "primal fear" response. It’s not just a loud noise; it’s a signal of a predator that is both close and highly unpredictable.
Why it’s scarier than a roar
Most monsters in games just scream at you. A zombie moans. A dragon roars. Those are "active" threats. The clicker last of us sound is terrifying because it’s "passive."
When a Clicker is just wandering, it clicks softly. It’s checking its environment. That "searching" click tells you that you are safe for now, but the margin for error is razor-thin. It builds a specific kind of tension called "anticipatory anxiety." You aren't scared of the noise itself; you're scared of what happens when that noise stops—or when it suddenly speeds up into a shriek because it found you.
👉 See also: Blox Fruit Current Stock: What Most People Get Wrong
Interestingly, the team found that the more "human" they kept the underlying voice, the more unsettling it was. You can still hear the remnants of a human voice box trying to work through the fungus. It's the "Uncanny Valley" of sound.
Actionable ways to experience (or avoid) the dread:
- Play with open-back headphones: If you really want to feel the directional nature of the sound, high-end open-back headphones give a wider soundstage. You’ll hear the Clicker behind you, not just in your ears.
- The "Brick/Bottle" Trick: In both the game and the show, Clickers are slaves to their hearing. If you hear a clicker getting too close, a bottle toss isn't just a distraction; it’s a way to manipulate their "vision."
- Watch the "Making Of" docs: If the sound scares you too much, watch the behind-the-scenes footage of Misty Lee in the recording booth. Seeing a normal, talented woman making those noises into a microphone usually breaks the "magic" enough to let you sleep at night.
If you’re trying to replicate the clicker last of us sound for a cosplay or a prank (don't do it to your grandma), it’s all in the back of the throat. It’s an "inhaled" click, not an exhaled one. You’re basically trying to vibrate your epiglottis while drawing air in. It hurts after about thirty seconds, which just makes me respect the voice actors even more.
The genius of Naughty Dog was realizing that the most terrifying thing isn't what we see in the dark—it's what we hear moving toward us. Twenty years from now, we might forget the specific plot beats of Joel and Ellie's journey, but we will definitely still remember that rattling, clicking sound in the basement of a dark hotel.
To get the most out of your next playthrough, try turning off the "Listen Mode" in the game settings. It forces you to rely entirely on your actual ears to track the clicker last of us sound, turning the game into a pure, terrifying audio-sensory experience.