The Rat King is The Last of Us: Part 2’s big bad, and the disgusting, infected creature surely doesn’t disappoint when it comes to its scare factor. Given the level of effort and detail that went into making the nightmarish monster, it’s no wonder that it’s one of the best elements of the game.
Players will encounter Rat King in the latter half of the game while playing as Abby. As she searches for supplies in the basement of the Firefly’s hospital, Abby will be startled by a massive mishmash of infected that has seemingly morphed into a single, highly lethal enemy. This creature is bigger, scarier, and harder to defeat than anything that’s been featured in The Last of Us franchise before.
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In order to defeat the Rat King, players have to keep on the move. Once it gets its claws on a player, it’s pretty much game over. After running for a bit, players will get the chance to take the monster head-on, and with a combination of skillful moves (and the player’s best weapons) it’s possible to take the beast down. In the process, players will be awed and shocked by how terrifying this creature in The Last of Us: Part 2 actually is.
How Did Naughty Dog Create TLOU2’s Rat King?
Earlier this month, actor played Abby as she struggled on her hands and knees to escape the creature, while another actor played the Rat King, completed with the monster’s stumbling walk.
The animators didn’t just come up with the idea for the Rat King out of nowhere, either, as the creature’s seemingly random name actually has an important meaning. A rat king typically refers to a rare phenomenon in which a series of rat's tails become entangled and bound together. This can happen if something sticky forces the tails together, or if they accidentally get knotted, though the incident has rarely been observed. Rat kings also have importance in folklore, often being perceived as a bad omen that foreshadows dark events to come. Given how the infected are intertwined in The Last of Us 2’s Rat King, and the overall eeriness the creature brings to the game, its name is certainly fitting.
The Last of Us 2 clearly put in a lot of effort into making the Rat King such a brilliant, albeit gross, element of the game, and no matter how divisive the sequel may be, such a fact cannot be denied.
