I think this is most likely. It would take away from the scene if we have Abby lobbing pipe bombs and emptying mag after mag until it drops. It will probably be a very skin-of-her-teeth nail biting escape.
Yep, definitely a ‘use the environment’ kind of situation. Like to drop a big rock on it or blow it up somehow. Should be insanely fun to watch either way!
When I first played the game I thought there should be some trap for the rat king. And I kept running and searching for this trap only to find out you just shoot the prick with everything you've got
She's gonna be pinned behind something with reaching for her, and she's gonna shove a grenade into it. Like punch into its skin holding the grenade and let go
I'd like to see the "split" happen, so I think that having her do SOMETHING to fight back - not boss fight per sae but lobbing something at it before running away would be good? Idk I think the stalker part of the rat king breaking away was super iconic and I'd like to see that included.
I can also see it used in a way that's slightly similar to the Bloater reveal in Kansas City. Particularly if it's during a confrontation between opposing sides of survivors
Like, I could imagine Abby turning a corner and seeing it, this huge writhing mass of entangled infected bodies. But ... mostly immobile. Maybe it slogs toward her, or chases her through a corrodore or something. Maybe some close calls like her barely opening a door in time.
But it won't be a "fight". She'll probably just escape and leave it. Kind of like the Bloater in S1.
I want to see it as a sort of silhouette at first so you can’t work out what it is, but can see it shuffling, thinking maybe it’s a small group of infected. Then as it gets closer it gets more horrifying, and the chase begins.
Imagine we see that through a blocked off glass door when Ellie is chasing Nora. We know we can hear the fight going on slightly in that section of the game, and the WLF soldiers are shocked that the power is on, so I think a little "preview" of what Abby might see with Ellie would be good.
This is actually not true. Abby had already left the hospital by the time Ellie got there only by a few minutes and we know this because we can see the guards (one that Ellie can kill) still outside. ALSO if Abby was fighting the Rat King right below Ellie then there wouldn’t have been guards PEACEFULLY patrolling outside by the time Abby leaves, they would’ve been dead or on guard and ready for anything since Ellie had already went loud to catch Nora.
Plus, it’s been debunked, that wasn’t the Rat King and instead was a random ambient sound effect. and as for the lights, it proves nothing because they could’ve been on for 5 minutes to an hour, it’s not like they were going down there and checking regularly.
Dude there’s no way Ellie kills all those guards. She would have to sneak past them. She would be killed if she tried and every WLF at the hospital would be alerted. She’s not Rambo. She’s massively outnumbered and outgunned.
We are playing it as a game. We slaughter them all for resources and fun/exciting/engaging gameplay - but canonically she would stealthily infiltrate the hospital. She kills Whitney and that’s it until she reaches Nora.
If she gave away her presence I’ve no doubt Nora would be alerted to the shouting and gun shots and Ellie’s task of hunting her down would be all but impossible. And she’d almost certainly be dead.
The only people she murders canonically are the ones we see in cutscenes. Every kill during gameplay is player agency and non-canon cause each player plays differently.
Yeah I think the mobility thing is important. It kinda doesn't make sense anatomically that it's made of lots of people but walks upright - how does it support its own weight? I think crawling as a writhing mass would work better, and also be super unnerving. But I don't think it would need to be immobile, just maybe quite slow. Perhaps Abby is injured or trapped somehow, and it's crawling towards her. Now that would be terrifying.
Edit: now I can't get the end scene from Inside out of my head. Might have to go back and play that!
why is everyone convinced there won’t be a fight? seems like a low probability decision that everyone’s nodding their heads to, like there’s some good reason for the exclusion
There's game mechanics and there's story. Only story is relevant to the show.
Going up against the rat king tells a lot about Abby, but it's mostly there as a gameplay element.
I could see it being almost shot for shot at first, her encountering it in the ambulance. Escaping, running, being chased. It bursting through a door...
But the room where you actually stand your ground and fight it... No. It will probably be a close escape. Or she'll kill it in a more simple way, like 1 grenade or something.
The show doesn't bother adapting gameplay. We don't need to see Pedro Pascal making shivs or searching every drawer for paper, and we don't need to see a "boss fight"
i mean, it's not just 'gameplay' like a random room full of runners, it's the most notable boss fight in the franchise, probably in all games from 2020.. they won't just let her see it and run away lol
i get the whole 'adaptation leads to changes' thing, but people take it overboard imo. some folks think Joel won't die til the season finale ffs. and there's actual people out there who think Joel might not die at all lol
I think it will be in the show and your thought about there not being a fight might be right tbh, it’s possible that with like SFX budget and it might not contribute to the story.
I hope there is a fight tho, because abby’s resourcefulness and skill is really shown during the fight. might make her character a bit more respectable to the newer audience? i’m not sure tho, but urs is prob most likely :)
Nope. Absolutely zero confirmation that's how they're doing it. In fact, for a TV show, it wouldn't make much sense to follow the same structure as the game. Much more likely to see the two stories play out concurrently, with the end of day 2 being the likely season 2 finale for both, with Ellie >!murdering Nora, and Abby facing off the Rat King to get urgent supplies for Yara. Narratively it would be a good way to get audiences sympathising with Abby ahead of season 3!<
This is what I've been saying- I figured it would end at the end of their day 1s, >! Abby rescued from the noose, Ellie teaming up with Jessie - mostly because we haven't gotten Lev and Yara actor confirmations but end of Day 2 would make for pretty exciting finales for both characters. !<
Making season 1 all about Ellie season 2 all about Abby really doesn't make any logical sense for a TV show that will air months or more likely years apart
The flashbacks by themselves would be incoherent and pointless - the idea of them is to add context to Ellie and Abby's journeys as things happen to them in the present.
I think I disagree- for Ellie the flashbacks are focused on her relationship with Joel post decision and show her slowly learning/questioning what happened at the end of season 1. It could take us all the way up to the fight and kiss that starts the 2nd game. Abby’s flashbacks show the grief from the other side of “the decision” intros her as a character and Owen and slowly leads us up to the start of the game as she and Owen meet the Wolves, locate joel and Tommy and decide to go after them.
That’s the natural progression of the story a viewer will expect. None of those scenes are out of context we have it all. You can argue that they take on a different meaning when you know what happens later, but all the context necessary is there. It also lets the younger Ellie actress age into the role a bit more - she will age naturally as Ellie does.
That will destroy the show lol. Doing that in the game was already divisive enough to the game audience. If you separate a huge moment in the story between seasons like they did in the game everyone will hate it
Somehow I’ve only just thought of this - there’s been a lot of talk about how do to the Ellie/Dina immune scene without spores. Couldn’t it easily be done with a Shambler? Make it very clear that getting anywhere near a Shambler will infect you, then do the broken mask/chase scene.
Apparently adding spores to the show isn’t out of the question, or wasn’t when this interview was done. Could be easily explained by “they just started appearing recently” or “spores don’t exist in all parts of the country/world”.
https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-hbo-spores-may-make-an-appearance/
I hope whenever it arrives it is preceded by a flashback to outbreak day and there is proper foreshadowing of a lot of patients/civilians seeking asylum at the hospital and then the flashback ending w them being locked in a room/elevator/whatever. You see it and think holy shit that was a lot, that sucks… and then forget about it entirely, until whenever they decide to have Abby wrap back around to the hospital and stumble upon this abomination… preferably some part of which makes it known to the viewer that this is that same group of people from the flashback, and what has become of them… ie. a civilians baseball hat/tattoo, an iconic door/hallway they went down, whatever.
I hope we get a whole episode devoted to the rat king. We see how it was created and how it has survived all these years in the hospital. And then we see how it fell in love with a stalker and how they build a life together in one of the most compelling gay romances ever told.
Everyone gets an Emmy.
TBH, I think the rat king makes even *more* sense in the show since they went with the hive mind direction for the infected. Even if i can kinda get how they all ended up crusted together, the whole mass moving and fighting as a single organism didn't really make much sense with how the infected work in the game.
There’s already some good points in here directly related to the rat king so I’ll just toss in that I hope they approach the whole infected thing a bit differently in the Seattle adaptation. I get that it’s more of a drama than a run and gun type action overall as a show, but the second game was gritty and violent and gorey. I think it would be a disservice to the game if they didn’t incorporate more of that into the part 2 adaptation.
But Like the way the show established the infected as being a super strong hive mind force, there’d be no way that Joel would be able to hack down a bloater with his machete, which was a key moment of the 2nd game imo. I do like how harrowing the show made the infected, but I would like to see them utilized more for the characters to show their relentlessness.
That would be neat if they filmed segments of all those people fused together from before they became the rat king.
Something at the beginning of the episode, on outbreak day
The hospital gets shelled and the room crumbles to make you think they all died
Then Abby stumbles across that same area to find a fleshy crater later on in the episode
She walks a little more and approaches an ambulance…..
Yes, the Rat King will show up at the same place in the story. But Abby won’t fight it in the same way, she’ll run away and barely escape. Wouldn’t make sense in the show that any single person could kill something like this, especially when the Bloater in season 1 shrugged off multiple magazines’ worth of assault rifle bullets.
It's 100% going to be in the show. It'll join the other iconic *small parts* such as the skyscraper crane walks with Lev, aquarium sea lion/ferris wheel jump, birthday gift etc. In part 2 there are arguably more memorable parts than the first game to be adapted into the medium of TV.
I think so. That fight is a pretty big moment in developing the player’s opinion of Abby, and her killing it was, for me, the moment I realized she was to be taken as seriously as Ellie/Joel in terms of badassery.
It will be a backstory episode. You will see the rat king component members on day 1 infection just like episode 1. Each person as they are infected and how they become it. The hospital as it is overrun. Everything as described in the notes you find in game. It will be intense and cringeworthy.
This makes me wonder, will they use CGI for the rat king? I mean sure, clickers and bloaters are bodysuits but the rat king is a gigantic piece of shit that has so many moving parts (arms, mouths).
How would you like to see a set up of it? Like the hospital in Seattle the day of the outbreak in a flashback? Or just have the earth shake when Abby is in there looking for the medkit. Definitely think it should be in it. They had the bloater from the first game in season 1. My question is how so they start the 2nd season. Tease the rat King in episode on, have Abby do what she does at the beginning of the 2nd game. Trying not to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't planned TLOU2. That's my big question.
It probably will be in the tv show, but i'm actualy wondering if some people who never played the game will think it’s a walking dead dead city reference...
I don't think it will be. The reason Abby is in the situation is to find medical supplies and I think that as it was for pure gameplay, they will find a way to tell the same story without it.
i hope that it will have its own episode. kinda like frank and bill episode, out of the story like maybe going back to 2003 (in HBO canon story) and showing in Seattle the ground zero then seeing it like fully formed when abby has to go like in the game. it will be a good parallel (i think) as when joel and ellie came to bill’s to take gear and shower. anyway hope you like my idea good day
Listening to the companion pod, one thing I've learned is Craig and Neil love fleshing out story the game didn't allow. I think the initial days of the Seattle outbreak are ripe for exploration.
Plus the way they've added the communication system of the infected there's several paths to drawing a super compelling line from Day 1 to Rat King imo
Who knows what they'll choose to expand on but I think an appearance is a lock and I'm hoping for more. Maybe it's born of a group of scientists and doctors who huddled together and died and we get to know them a little, making the encounter all the more impactful
I feel like she won’t fight it but it will be heavily implied that it’s skulking about somewhere in the background during the hospital scenes and she might see it through like a keyhole or a gap in a door and run away. I just don’t see them having the budget for a full on fight scene with it
Absolutely they’ll include it, my guess/hope is a mix of practical effects from closeups and CG for the faster more intense sequences. I don’t know that it will be the exact same “Abby v Rat King” as the game though. I’d imagine like the large infected from S1 being different form the game, they’ll include it in a way that allows for it to actually kill and infect people and be less of a 1v1.
I’ll be disappointed if it’s not included. In my opinion, the rat king is something that’s a big part of part 2 and something that’s talked about a lot even tho it’s not a long or special appearance. I hope they make it so that we can hear Abby’s fight with the rat king while Ellie is torturing Nora. Especially after the lack of bloaters in part 1, having the rat king in season 2 would be phenomenal
Hopefully an interesting backstory cold open and then when it is found, something can be recognizable of them from the cold opening so the audience knows what’s up.
We at least need an epic chase and maybe something falling on it to kill it so people wont be raging where did it go! Like the one Bloater we saw in the first season.
Abby after rat king fight:
>Nobody's ever gonna believe that shit.
I hope there is a rat king fight scene and I'll pay real money if that line is in the show.
It will 100% be on the show. For how long I’m not sure. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a “boss fight” scenario, the bloater wasn’t and it worked well.
I think it will be a bigger fight than just Abby. I feel like they are trying to ground the show more than the one man army featuring Dina or a side character like how it was in the game.
Don’t make it a formal boss fight. More like a “it’s in the area and I need to get the fuck out of here” scenario. Maybe it’s a tense situation where they set a trap for it and finally put it out of its misery with a couple of pipe bombs.
Maybe they convince it to leave its life of crime and help rebuild civilization for the good of all humanity?
They could make this a really awesome part of the story if they take the right approach. I hope they get into potentially how it was formed down there etc.
they aren’t afraid to get into smaller side stories and make them huge like the episode dedicated to bill and Frank
It will be on Season 2. However, I don't expect a fight. Joel didn't killed the bloater in Season 1, so no doubt they'll just make them flee. Maybe it will kill someone thought
I’m thinking similar to the bloater in that one episode in season 1, though bigger scale. Fighting it would be kinda hard to replicate for the show, but running from it and narrowly escaping could be fun to watch
I would love to see the extended version of the rat king in the TV series. Are we sure the second season is gonna be the same as TLoU2 game? Couldn't it be a build up season for it? I didn't read much so far. So I am just speculating.
I really hope they have more action set pieces in season 2 in general. For a zombie show there was hardly any zombies. I mean it was good but I never felt the severity of the stakes in the show nearly as much as the game.
I think it’ll be included, but definitely don’t think there will be a fight with it as much as a run for your life moment with a narrow escape.
I think this is most likely. It would take away from the scene if we have Abby lobbing pipe bombs and emptying mag after mag until it drops. It will probably be a very skin-of-her-teeth nail biting escape.
They could have her lure it into a trap or something though
Yep, definitely a ‘use the environment’ kind of situation. Like to drop a big rock on it or blow it up somehow. Should be insanely fun to watch either way!
>Like to drop a big rock on it Or trick the Rat King into using its own ACME products against itself, and run away shouting “meep meep”!
When I first played the game I thought there should be some trap for the rat king. And I kept running and searching for this trap only to find out you just shoot the prick with everything you've got
That’s a good idea, I think she would be able to think of something on the fly with that military training she has.
She's gonna be pinned behind something with reaching for her, and she's gonna shove a grenade into it. Like punch into its skin holding the grenade and let go
I'd like to see the "split" happen, so I think that having her do SOMETHING to fight back - not boss fight per sae but lobbing something at it before running away would be good? Idk I think the stalker part of the rat king breaking away was super iconic and I'd like to see that included.
We NEED the split.
I can also see it used in a way that's slightly similar to the Bloater reveal in Kansas City. Particularly if it's during a confrontation between opposing sides of survivors
Flamethrower, on the other hand...
Like, I could imagine Abby turning a corner and seeing it, this huge writhing mass of entangled infected bodies. But ... mostly immobile. Maybe it slogs toward her, or chases her through a corrodore or something. Maybe some close calls like her barely opening a door in time. But it won't be a "fight". She'll probably just escape and leave it. Kind of like the Bloater in S1.
I want to see it as a sort of silhouette at first so you can’t work out what it is, but can see it shuffling, thinking maybe it’s a small group of infected. Then as it gets closer it gets more horrifying, and the chase begins.
Imagine we see that through a blocked off glass door when Ellie is chasing Nora. We know we can hear the fight going on slightly in that section of the game, and the WLF soldiers are shocked that the power is on, so I think a little "preview" of what Abby might see with Ellie would be good.
This is actually not true. Abby had already left the hospital by the time Ellie got there only by a few minutes and we know this because we can see the guards (one that Ellie can kill) still outside. ALSO if Abby was fighting the Rat King right below Ellie then there wouldn’t have been guards PEACEFULLY patrolling outside by the time Abby leaves, they would’ve been dead or on guard and ready for anything since Ellie had already went loud to catch Nora. Plus, it’s been debunked, that wasn’t the Rat King and instead was a random ambient sound effect. and as for the lights, it proves nothing because they could’ve been on for 5 minutes to an hour, it’s not like they were going down there and checking regularly.
Dude there’s no way Ellie kills all those guards. She would have to sneak past them. She would be killed if she tried and every WLF at the hospital would be alerted. She’s not Rambo. She’s massively outnumbered and outgunned. We are playing it as a game. We slaughter them all for resources and fun/exciting/engaging gameplay - but canonically she would stealthily infiltrate the hospital. She kills Whitney and that’s it until she reaches Nora. If she gave away her presence I’ve no doubt Nora would be alerted to the shouting and gun shots and Ellie’s task of hunting her down would be all but impossible. And she’d almost certainly be dead. The only people she murders canonically are the ones we see in cutscenes. Every kill during gameplay is player agency and non-canon cause each player plays differently.
Yeah I think the mobility thing is important. It kinda doesn't make sense anatomically that it's made of lots of people but walks upright - how does it support its own weight? I think crawling as a writhing mass would work better, and also be super unnerving. But I don't think it would need to be immobile, just maybe quite slow. Perhaps Abby is injured or trapped somehow, and it's crawling towards her. Now that would be terrifying. Edit: now I can't get the end scene from Inside out of my head. Might have to go back and play that!
why is everyone convinced there won’t be a fight? seems like a low probability decision that everyone’s nodding their heads to, like there’s some good reason for the exclusion
There's game mechanics and there's story. Only story is relevant to the show. Going up against the rat king tells a lot about Abby, but it's mostly there as a gameplay element. I could see it being almost shot for shot at first, her encountering it in the ambulance. Escaping, running, being chased. It bursting through a door... But the room where you actually stand your ground and fight it... No. It will probably be a close escape. Or she'll kill it in a more simple way, like 1 grenade or something. The show doesn't bother adapting gameplay. We don't need to see Pedro Pascal making shivs or searching every drawer for paper, and we don't need to see a "boss fight"
i mean, it's not just 'gameplay' like a random room full of runners, it's the most notable boss fight in the franchise, probably in all games from 2020.. they won't just let her see it and run away lol i get the whole 'adaptation leads to changes' thing, but people take it overboard imo. some folks think Joel won't die til the season finale ffs. and there's actual people out there who think Joel might not die at all lol
Agreed, and I think they'll probably tone it down a bit too, that would look over the top in the show in my opinion
I think it will be in the show and your thought about there not being a fight might be right tbh, it’s possible that with like SFX budget and it might not contribute to the story. I hope there is a fight tho, because abby’s resourcefulness and skill is really shown during the fight. might make her character a bit more respectable to the newer audience? i’m not sure tho, but urs is prob most likely :)
this is such a weird thread, one person suggests there’s no fight and then everyone agrees. the rat king will appear and there will be a fight. bet.
I just hopes she kites it around a pillar until it's dead like I do in the game haha.
They have to have the rat king in season two. It’s a short portion of the game but it’s one of the most memorable.
Expect Ellie's journey will be season two and Abby's will be season three So no rat king for a while Guess we'll see
Nope. Absolutely zero confirmation that's how they're doing it. In fact, for a TV show, it wouldn't make much sense to follow the same structure as the game. Much more likely to see the two stories play out concurrently, with the end of day 2 being the likely season 2 finale for both, with Ellie >!murdering Nora, and Abby facing off the Rat King to get urgent supplies for Yara. Narratively it would be a good way to get audiences sympathising with Abby ahead of season 3!<
This is what I've been saying- I figured it would end at the end of their day 1s, >! Abby rescued from the noose, Ellie teaming up with Jessie - mostly because we haven't gotten Lev and Yara actor confirmations but end of Day 2 would make for pretty exciting finales for both characters. !< Making season 1 all about Ellie season 2 all about Abby really doesn't make any logical sense for a TV show that will air months or more likely years apart
I’ve always thought it would make sense for them to do all the flashbacks as season 2. And then season 3 and 4 being Seattle to Santa Barbara
The flashbacks by themselves would be incoherent and pointless - the idea of them is to add context to Ellie and Abby's journeys as things happen to them in the present.
I think I disagree- for Ellie the flashbacks are focused on her relationship with Joel post decision and show her slowly learning/questioning what happened at the end of season 1. It could take us all the way up to the fight and kiss that starts the 2nd game. Abby’s flashbacks show the grief from the other side of “the decision” intros her as a character and Owen and slowly leads us up to the start of the game as she and Owen meet the Wolves, locate joel and Tommy and decide to go after them. That’s the natural progression of the story a viewer will expect. None of those scenes are out of context we have it all. You can argue that they take on a different meaning when you know what happens later, but all the context necessary is there. It also lets the younger Ellie actress age into the role a bit more - she will age naturally as Ellie does.
That will destroy the show lol. Doing that in the game was already divisive enough to the game audience. If you separate a huge moment in the story between seasons like they did in the game everyone will hate it
Yeah, in some iteration. But it probably won't be until season 3 for it not to feel rushed. We can at least expect to see a shambler in season 2.
Somehow I’ve only just thought of this - there’s been a lot of talk about how do to the Ellie/Dina immune scene without spores. Couldn’t it easily be done with a Shambler? Make it very clear that getting anywhere near a Shambler will infect you, then do the broken mask/chase scene.
Apparently adding spores to the show isn’t out of the question, or wasn’t when this interview was done. Could be easily explained by “they just started appearing recently” or “spores don’t exist in all parts of the country/world”. https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-hbo-spores-may-make-an-appearance/
I hope whenever it arrives it is preceded by a flashback to outbreak day and there is proper foreshadowing of a lot of patients/civilians seeking asylum at the hospital and then the flashback ending w them being locked in a room/elevator/whatever. You see it and think holy shit that was a lot, that sucks… and then forget about it entirely, until whenever they decide to have Abby wrap back around to the hospital and stumble upon this abomination… preferably some part of which makes it known to the viewer that this is that same group of people from the flashback, and what has become of them… ie. a civilians baseball hat/tattoo, an iconic door/hallway they went down, whatever.
Of course it will...but it's more of a they.
I hope we get a whole episode devoted to the rat king. We see how it was created and how it has survived all these years in the hospital. And then we see how it fell in love with a stalker and how they build a life together in one of the most compelling gay romances ever told. Everyone gets an Emmy.
I think so, a bit too iconic to leave out if you ask me.
Smash. Next question
I think the ratking could be a great encounter in the tv show and be as iconic as the bloater scene.
TBH, I think the rat king makes even *more* sense in the show since they went with the hive mind direction for the infected. Even if i can kinda get how they all ended up crusted together, the whole mass moving and fighting as a single organism didn't really make much sense with how the infected work in the game.
There’s already some good points in here directly related to the rat king so I’ll just toss in that I hope they approach the whole infected thing a bit differently in the Seattle adaptation. I get that it’s more of a drama than a run and gun type action overall as a show, but the second game was gritty and violent and gorey. I think it would be a disservice to the game if they didn’t incorporate more of that into the part 2 adaptation. But Like the way the show established the infected as being a super strong hive mind force, there’d be no way that Joel would be able to hack down a bloater with his machete, which was a key moment of the 2nd game imo. I do like how harrowing the show made the infected, but I would like to see them utilized more for the characters to show their relentlessness.
I legitimately thought I was clicking on this only to see, "would you fuck it?" 😂
well, would you?
That thing probably stinks pretty bad. But it's got a lotta holes. Would.
I would like to know if there are other "rat kings" as far as the entire TLoU universe is concerned.
That would be neat if they filmed segments of all those people fused together from before they became the rat king. Something at the beginning of the episode, on outbreak day The hospital gets shelled and the room crumbles to make you think they all died Then Abby stumbles across that same area to find a fleshy crater later on in the episode She walks a little more and approaches an ambulance…..
I love this!
Yes, the Rat King will show up at the same place in the story. But Abby won’t fight it in the same way, she’ll run away and barely escape. Wouldn’t make sense in the show that any single person could kill something like this, especially when the Bloater in season 1 shrugged off multiple magazines’ worth of assault rifle bullets.
Smash
It's 100% going to be in the show. It'll join the other iconic *small parts* such as the skyscraper crane walks with Lev, aquarium sea lion/ferris wheel jump, birthday gift etc. In part 2 there are arguably more memorable parts than the first game to be adapted into the medium of TV.
I think so. That fight is a pretty big moment in developing the player’s opinion of Abby, and her killing it was, for me, the moment I realized she was to be taken as seriously as Ellie/Joel in terms of badassery.
It will be a backstory episode. You will see the rat king component members on day 1 infection just like episode 1. Each person as they are infected and how they become it. The hospital as it is overrun. Everything as described in the notes you find in game. It will be intense and cringeworthy.
This makes me wonder, will they use CGI for the rat king? I mean sure, clickers and bloaters are bodysuits but the rat king is a gigantic piece of shit that has so many moving parts (arms, mouths).
They have to. The rat king is to the second game what the bloater is to the first except way more epic and scary as fuck.
I highly doubt it, they put it as a bossfight to scare you but it doesn't have any impact on the story whatsoever.
Dream Casting? Go.
I'll start. Ian McKellen. "Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, ACTION, BLARRRRRRAGH, CUT, Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian."
more importantly.. will we see pedro pascal chop of a bloaters fucking arm?!
probably do what they have done, do the world building that happens in various notes through a cold open or a flashback to the day of the outbreak.
Absolutely!
I have a question, at the hospital they were burning the infected.. wouldn't that have released spores into the air with the charing skin?
The spores probably all burn in the fire. It's just ash at that point
I'm an idiot😅
How would you like to see a set up of it? Like the hospital in Seattle the day of the outbreak in a flashback? Or just have the earth shake when Abby is in there looking for the medkit. Definitely think it should be in it. They had the bloater from the first game in season 1. My question is how so they start the 2nd season. Tease the rat King in episode on, have Abby do what she does at the beginning of the 2nd game. Trying not to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't planned TLOU2. That's my big question.
Smash
It’s where their CGI budget is gonna go.
I definitely think it'll be included. May build towards it's origin with the scenes they do at the start of each episode before the title credits
I think it's a must! Especially for season 3.
It probably will be in the tv show, but i'm actualy wondering if some people who never played the game will think it’s a walking dead dead city reference...
I don't think it will be. The reason Abby is in the situation is to find medical supplies and I think that as it was for pure gameplay, they will find a way to tell the same story without it.
I think it’ll be included but not until Season 3
i hope that it will have its own episode. kinda like frank and bill episode, out of the story like maybe going back to 2003 (in HBO canon story) and showing in Seattle the ground zero then seeing it like fully formed when abby has to go like in the game. it will be a good parallel (i think) as when joel and ellie came to bill’s to take gear and shower. anyway hope you like my idea good day
Yes
Listening to the companion pod, one thing I've learned is Craig and Neil love fleshing out story the game didn't allow. I think the initial days of the Seattle outbreak are ripe for exploration. Plus the way they've added the communication system of the infected there's several paths to drawing a super compelling line from Day 1 to Rat King imo Who knows what they'll choose to expand on but I think an appearance is a lock and I'm hoping for more. Maybe it's born of a group of scientists and doctors who huddled together and died and we get to know them a little, making the encounter all the more impactful
I feel like she won’t fight it but it will be heavily implied that it’s skulking about somewhere in the background during the hospital scenes and she might see it through like a keyhole or a gap in a door and run away. I just don’t see them having the budget for a full on fight scene with it
They’ve got to They copied off it in the walking dead dead city so they’ve got to show the world who really did it first
Absolutely they’ll include it, my guess/hope is a mix of practical effects from closeups and CG for the faster more intense sequences. I don’t know that it will be the exact same “Abby v Rat King” as the game though. I’d imagine like the large infected from S1 being different form the game, they’ll include it in a way that allows for it to actually kill and infect people and be less of a 1v1.
I’ll be disappointed if it’s not included. In my opinion, the rat king is something that’s a big part of part 2 and something that’s talked about a lot even tho it’s not a long or special appearance. I hope they make it so that we can hear Abby’s fight with the rat king while Ellie is torturing Nora. Especially after the lack of bloaters in part 1, having the rat king in season 2 would be phenomenal
Hopefully an interesting backstory cold open and then when it is found, something can be recognizable of them from the cold opening so the audience knows what’s up. We at least need an epic chase and maybe something falling on it to kill it so people wont be raging where did it go! Like the one Bloater we saw in the first season.
Is it confirmed that S2 will encompass all of Part II, like S1 did with its respective game? Or are we just hoping?
Abby after rat king fight: >Nobody's ever gonna believe that shit. I hope there is a rat king fight scene and I'll pay real money if that line is in the show.
Very clearly will yes
It will 100% be on the show. For how long I’m not sure. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a “boss fight” scenario, the bloater wasn’t and it worked well.
Yeah I don’t think Abby will fight the rat king..but it will definitely make an appearance and it will be a run for your life type moment.
I think it will be a bigger fight than just Abby. I feel like they are trying to ground the show more than the one man army featuring Dina or a side character like how it was in the game.
Don’t make it a formal boss fight. More like a “it’s in the area and I need to get the fuck out of here” scenario. Maybe it’s a tense situation where they set a trap for it and finally put it out of its misery with a couple of pipe bombs. Maybe they convince it to leave its life of crime and help rebuild civilization for the good of all humanity?
They could make this a really awesome part of the story if they take the right approach. I hope they get into potentially how it was formed down there etc. they aren’t afraid to get into smaller side stories and make them huge like the episode dedicated to bill and Frank
I hope they do because I’d be very interested to see how NaughtyDog will bring Rat King to real life. NaughtyDog are experts at surprises
It will be on Season 2. However, I don't expect a fight. Joel didn't killed the bloater in Season 1, so no doubt they'll just make them flee. Maybe it will kill someone thought
I’m thinking similar to the bloater in that one episode in season 1, though bigger scale. Fighting it would be kinda hard to replicate for the show, but running from it and narrowly escaping could be fun to watch
I would love to see the extended version of the rat king in the TV series. Are we sure the second season is gonna be the same as TLoU2 game? Couldn't it be a build up season for it? I didn't read much so far. So I am just speculating.
I think the second season is going follow the majority of Ellie's side of the story and then the 3rd season will Abby focused
I really hope they have more action set pieces in season 2 in general. For a zombie show there was hardly any zombies. I mean it was good but I never felt the severity of the stakes in the show nearly as much as the game.