Future Days

Craig Mazin said the tendrils growing inside a pipe in Jackson reflected humans disrupting the world while achieving industry: breaking the pipe was a noble effort to build more homes to house refugees but it has consequences, allowing the tendrils into Jackson.

When Ellie is target shooting at infected, there is a noticeable delay between her firing the rifle and the bullet hitting the target, it takes at least two seconds after the gun fires for the bullet to hit, and in the head no less. In order for that long of a delay the shooter would have to be at extreme range, too far for someone with Ellie's training & experience, especially with the type of rifle she's using. Ellie has a Springfield M1A which can fire the .308 Winchester round and its military counterpart the 7.62x51mm NATO, it uses a shorter 18-22 inch barrel depending on the model, and is designed for close to medium range targets up to 400-600 yards distant. The average military ammo load has a muzzle velocity of about 2,860 feet per second, and a 1,000 yard velocity of about 1,230 fps, it would take 1.83 seconds for a bullet to travel 1,000 yards assuming there was no wind; a full 2 seconds would place the target at more like 1,150 yards. 1,000 yards is considered well beyond the effective range of a .308 in the hands of a typical experienced shooter, even in longer barrel sniper rifles. Both the U.S. Army & Marine Corps, plus Naval Special Warfare, list its maximum effective range against a human target to be 500 yards for a typical military trained shooter and about 800 yards for snipers. Only highly experienced, expert long range marksman would be able to hit a target at 1,100 yards with a .308, and only special forces snipers would be capable of making a head-shot at that distance.

Featured in HBO's The Last of Us Podcast: Episode 1 - "Future Days" (2025)