Honestly, if you ask someone why The Last of Us is scary, they’ll probably start talking about the Clickers. You know the sound. That wet, rhythmic snapping that echoes through a dark basement in Pittsburgh or a collapsed skyscraper in Boston. It’s iconic. It’s terrifying. But if you’ve actually sat through the 2013 original, the Part I remake, or the HBO adaptation, you realize the fungus isn't actually the peak of the horror. Not even close.
The fear in Naughty Dog’s universe is a slow burn. It’s the kind of dread that sits in your stomach because it feels plausible. We’ve all seen zombie movies, right? Usually, it's some magic virus or a secret lab leak. But The Last of Us uses Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. That’s a real thing. It exists in the Amazon. It hijacks ant brains. When Neil Druckmann and the team at Naughty Dog watched that Planet Earth segment years ago, they tapped into a biological horror that makes the game feel grounded in a way Resident Evil or Dead Island never could.
The Sound of Your Own Pulse: Why Clickers Still Work
The mechanics of the Clicker are a masterclass in tension. Most horror games give you a gun and tell you to aim for the head. In this world, ammo is a luxury. You’re crouching in the dirt, staring at a creature that has no eyes but can hear your heartbeat.
The "scary" part isn't just the jump scare. It’s the silence.
You find yourself holding your actual, real-life breath while Joel or Ellie creeps past a Bloater. The sound design by Gustavo Santaolalla and the audio team creates this oppressive atmosphere where every floorboard creak feels like a death sentence. Clickers use echolocation. They are literally screaming into the dark to find you. When you realize that the person underneath that fungal growth is still technically "alive" but trapped in their own body, the horror shifts from physical to existential.
It’s the Humans, Always
You’ve probably heard this trope before: "Man is the real monster."
In many games, that’s a lazy writing excuse for more combat encounters. In The Last of Us, it’s a terrifying psychological reality. Think about David. If you’ve played through the winter chapter, you know David represents a level of depravity that makes a Bloater look like a puppy. The fear here is grounded in the breakdown of the social contract.
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When society disappears, what’s left?
The game forces you to confront the fact that people will do anything to survive. Anything. The cannibalism subplot isn't just for shock value; it’s a reflection of the desperate environmental pressures the Cordyceps created. Watching Ellie, a child, have to navigate the predatory nature of a man like David is arguably the most disturbing sequence in modern gaming history. It’s visceral. It’s uncomfortable. It’s why people say The Last of Us is scary—not because of the monsters under the bed, but because of the person standing next to you.
The Scariest Level You Forgot About
Everyone talks about the hotel basement in Pittsburgh. You know the one. You fall down the elevator shaft, it’s pitch black, and you have to find a keycard while a Stalker watches you from the shadows.
But have you thought about the Rat King in Part II?
Deep in the bowels of the Seattle hospital, the game introduces a literal nightmare of biology. It’s a mass of multiple infected fused together over twenty years. It’s a "patient zero" scenario. The boss fight is terrifying, sure, but the environmental storytelling leading up to it is worse. You’re walking through a space where the infection has had decades to fester. The walls are breathing. The air is thick with spores.
This is where the game excels at "environmental storytelling." You find notes from doctors who stayed behind to help patients, only to realize they were witnessing the end of the world in real-time. Reading a diary entry from a nurse who is describing her own cough while you hear a wheeze from the next room over? That’s peak horror.
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The Loss of Agency
Fear often stems from a lack of control.
In many shooters, you are a god. You have a mini-map, a health bar that regenerates, and a thousand rounds of 5.56.
In The Last of Us, you are a middle-aged man with bad knees or a teenage girl who weighs 100 pounds. Your shiv breaks. Your flashlight flickers. You run out of bricks. The scarcity of resources forces you to play "scared." You aren't hunting the infected; you are trying to survive them. This shift in power dynamics is why the game stays under your skin. You feel vulnerable.
The Horror of Love and What It Makes Us Do
Let’s get deep for a second. The most frightening thing about the series isn't the gore. It’s the moral ambiguity of Joel’s choice.
The ending of the first game is a gut punch because it asks: "What would you sacrifice to save one person you love?" Joel chooses Ellie over the world. That’s a scary thought. It suggests that our capacity for love is also our capacity for extreme violence and selfishness.
When you play as Abby in the sequel, the game flips the script. You realize the "monster" you’ve been running from is just someone else’s hero. This psychological disorientation is a form of horror that most games don't have the guts to touch. It makes you question your own actions. It makes you feel complicit.
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Is it Scarier on TV or in the Game?
The HBO show did something interesting. They took out a lot of the "gamey" fights to focus on the infection as a hive mind. In the show, if you step on a patch of fungus in one place, the infected miles away know where you are.
That’s a different kind of scary. It’s an interconnected, inevitable force.
However, the game still wins on tension. There is no substitute for being the one holding the controller. When the red light of the PS5 controller starts flashing because your health is low and you can hear a Stalker scurrying behind a crate, your brain reacts differently than when you're just watching Pedro Pascal. The interactivity creates a physical stress response. Your hands sweat. Your heart rate actually spikes.
Actionable Ways to Experience the Horror
If you really want to understand why The Last of Us is scary, you can't just play it on "Easy" and breeze through the story. To get the full experience, you have to lean into the vulnerability.
- Play on Grounded Mode: This removes the HUD and "Listen Mode." You can’t see through walls anymore. You have to rely on your actual ears. It turns the game into a pure survival horror experience where every single bullet is a miracle.
- Use High-Quality Headphones: The 3D audio in the PS5 version is a game-changer. You can hear the exact direction a Clicker is twitching. It’s claustrophobic and brilliant.
- Pay Attention to the Notes: Don't skip the "artifacts" scattered around. The stories of families trapped in sewers or soldiers losing their minds provide the context that makes the physical threats feel heavier.
- Turn Off the Lights: Obvious, but true. The lighting engine in the remake is stunning. The way shadows play off the fungal growths is designed to trick your eyes.
The series isn't just a "zombie game." It's a look at the fragility of our species. It’s about the fact that nature doesn't care about our feelings, and our neighbors might be more dangerous than the monsters in the dark. That realization is the real reason the game stays with you long after the credits roll.
To truly appreciate the craft, look at the "Stalker" enemy type. Unlike Clickers who charge you, Stalkers hide. They peek around corners and wait for you to look away. They are the only enemy in the game that actively plays with your psychology. If you find yourself staring at a doorway, afraid to move because you think you saw a shadow move, then the game has done its job. It’s not just about the jump; it’s about the anticipation of the jump.
Start your next playthrough by disabling "Listen Mode" in the settings. Forcing yourself to enter a room blind changes the entire DNA of the game. You'll stop feeling like a survivor and start feeling like prey. That is when you'll truly understand the depth of the horror Naughty Dog built.