The Last Of Us showrunners promise "a lot more infected" next season

eurogamer.net:

There will be «a lot more infected» when The Last of Us' second season airs.

That's coming from series co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin. Ahead of the first season's finale (which aired last night/early this morning, depending on where you are. You can read my spoiler-heavy thoughts on it here), Druckmann and Mazin took part in a virtual press conference for the show.

Here, they addressed the first season's somewhat reduced action compared to the game it is based on. Please note, this article contains spoilers for both the show and the game. Please read on at your own discretion.

Mazin admitted the showrunners had heard viewers' concerns about the series' reduced action, but explained that «ultimately, we generally stressed the power of relationships and trying to find significance within moments of action» (thanks, Variety).

This meant less action in series one, as the showrunners «couldn't necessarily find significance for quite a bit of it». Additionally, there were concerns too much action could become «repetitive» for the viewer.

«After all, you're not playing it, you're watching it,» Mazin remarked. «Although a lot of people do like to watch gameplay, it needs to be a little more focused and purposeful when we're putting it on TV.»

Mazin continued: «Part of the adaptation process is trying to figure out how to take source material that was built around gameplay, and port it over to a medium that is passive.

»A lot of the gameplay is centred on [non-playable characters] that you have to get around, avoid, stealth kill or just confront head on. The NPCs were either raiders, cannibals, FEDRA or the infected. So there's a lot of fighting."

Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, who wrote the original The Last of Us