You hear it before you see it. That rhythmic, wet snapping sound that feels like someone is cracking a bundle of dry twigs inside a bucket of jam. It’s haunting. If you’ve played the games or watched the HBO show, you know exactly what I’m talking about: the clicker from Last of Us. They aren’t the fastest enemies in the series, nor are they the biggest, but they’ve become the definitive face of the franchise for a reason.
The fungus wins.
Most zombie stories give you a virus or a curse. Naughty Dog gave us Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. It’s a real fungus that actually exists in the rainforest, hijacking the brains of ants to turn them into "zombie ants." In the world of the game, it jumped to humans. By the time a host becomes a clicker, they’ve been infected for at least a year. The fungus has literally burst through their skull, splitting the face open like a gruesome, calcified flower. They’re blind. They’re starving. And they are incredibly loud.
The evolution of a nightmare
Getting to the clicker stage is actually a sign of "success" for the infection. Most people die or get stuck as Runners—those frantic, sobbing victims who still look human but have lost control of their motor functions. If you survive that first year, the Cordyceps thickens. It hardens. It creates a natural armor of fungal plates over your eyes and forehead.
This is where the biology gets fascinatingly dark. Because the fungus has destroyed their eyes, the clicker from Last of Us uses echolocation. It’s basically a murderous bat. They emit those clicking sounds and listen for the bounce-back to map out their surroundings. It’s why you can stand perfectly still three feet away from one and survive, but if you so much as kick a glass bottle, you’re dead.
The sound design is where the real magic happens. Phillip Kovats and the team at Naughty Dog didn't just use a computer to make that noise. They actually looked for a specific vocal quality. Voice actors like Misty Lee and Eric Stein brought a weird, rattling guttural clicking to life. It sounds like a throat full of gravel and phlegm. It’s visceral. It feels "wet" in a way that makes your skin crawl. Honestly, it’s one of the few game sounds that can trigger a physical fight-or-flight response even when the screen is off.
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Survival is about silence and shivs
Let’s talk about gameplay for a second. If you’re playing on Grounded difficulty, a single clicker from Last of Us is basically a boss fight. You can’t just punch them. Their skin is too hard, and their bite is an instant kill. In the first game, if one grabbed Joel and he didn't have a shiv, it was game over. Just like that. Teeth in the neck. Fade to black.
They force a complete change in how you move. Most games encourage you to be a hero. The Last of Us turns you into a mouse. You spend half your time crouched, staring at the floor, measuring every single inch of movement. You’ll find yourself holding your actual, real-life breath while Joel sneaks past a group of them in a dark subway tunnel.
The AI behavior is surprisingly complex too. They don't just walk in circles. They twitch. They lurch. They stop and tilt their heads, "listening" to the room. It’s that unpredictability that gets you. Just when you think you have their patrol pattern figured out, one will let out a scream and sprint toward a sound you didn't even realize you made.
Why the HBO show changed the rules
When Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann brought the story to TV, they had to handle the clicker from Last of Us carefully. In a game, you can fight twenty of them. In a live-action show, that feels silly. It loses the stakes.
So, they made them rarer. And much, much more dangerous.
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In the famous museum sequence in Episode 2, we see just two clickers. But those two feel like a natural disaster. The show emphasized the "click" as a sonar wave. You could see the actors—Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey—freezing in place, realizing that even a heavy breath could be a death sentence. The prosthetics used by BGFX (the team behind the show's makeup) were incredible. They used practical molds instead of just CGI, which gives the fungal growths a heavy, organic weight. You can see the layers of the infection. It looks like a shelf fungus you’d find on an old oak tree, just... growing out of a person's nose.
The tragic reality of the fungus
What people often miss about the clicker from Last of Us is the tragedy. Underneath those plates of hardened cordyceps, there used to be a person. If you listen closely to the idle animations in the game, they aren't just clicking. They’re moaning. They’re whimpering.
There is a long-standing debate among fans and the developers about how much "humanity" is left. Does the person know what they’re doing? Are they trapped inside their own body, watching through a veil of fungus while they tear someone apart? The Runners clearly show distress—they often scream "I’m sorry" or "Help me" while they attack. By the time they hit the clicker stage, that voice is mostly gone, replaced by the fungal drive to spread spores. But the occasional human-sounding sob still slips through. It’s enough to make you feel bad for them, right before you blow their head off with a shotgun.
How to handle an encounter without dying
If you’re revisiting the games or just curious about the mechanics, there are a few "pro" ways to deal with a clicker from Last of Us that the game doesn't always spell out for you.
- Brick is King: Seriously. A brick is more valuable than a gun in many scenarios. A brick throw followed by a melee strike is a reliable way to take one down without wasting ammo.
- The Bottle Distraction: If you’re cornered, throw a bottle away from you. The clicker will sprint to the point of impact. This gives you a three-second window to move.
- Arrows are Silent: If you have the bow, a headshot is a silent kill. But aim for the gaps in the fungal plating. If you hit the heavy armor, the arrow might just bounce off, and then you’ve got a very angry, very fast monster heading your way.
- Don't Flash the Light: While they are blind, they are sensitive to the heat and movement of high-intensity light in some versions of the lore, though primarily, they react to sound. In the game, the flashlight is for your benefit, but staying in the dark is always safer for your own heart rate.
The cultural impact of a fungal freak
The clicker from Last of Us has transcended the game. You see them in Halloween horror nights, in fan art, and referenced in other media. They represent a specific kind of "grounded" horror. It's not supernatural. It’s biological. It feels like something that could happen if nature just decided it was tired of us.
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That’s the real hook. It’s the fear of being replaced. The fungus doesn't hate you; it just wants to use you as a greenhouse. The clicker is the middle stage of that process—the point where the human shape is still recognizable, but the "soul" has been completely crowded out by a mushroom.
What to do next
If you want to really appreciate the design work here, go back and play The Last of Us Part I (the remake) with headphones on. Turn up the 3D audio. The way the clicking moves from your left ear to your right ear as they prowl around you is a masterclass in tension. Or, if you’re more of a "behind the scenes" person, look up the "Grounded" making-of documentary. Watching the voice actors perform the clicks in a recording booth is both impressive and deeply unsettling. It’ll make you appreciate the craft that goes into making a monster feel this real.
Stay quiet. Keep a shiv ready. And whatever you do, don't step on the glass.
Actionable Insights for Survivors:
- Master the "Slow Walk": Gently tilting the analog stick is the only way to move past a clicker undetected on higher difficulties.
- Resource Management: Never use a bullet on a clicker if a brick or a stealth kill is an option. Ammo is the rarest thing in the apocalypse.
- Environment Awareness: Always look for "spore zones." If you see white dust in the air, you're in their territory. Mask up and slow down.