The Last of Us is about as serious as a video game franchise can get, with the original game having its fair share of dark moments. One such scene comes after players spend time with Henry and Sam, though a goofy The Last of Us bug with serious Stranger Things vibes ruined the vibe of Henry and Sam's section.
As Sam is making friends with Ellie, Joel is working with an AI-controlled version of Henry to work through certain areas and clear out groups of enemies. Normally, this AI ally behaves properly, even if they leave most of the damage dealing to Joel and the player. For whatever reason, though, the version of Henry in Reddit user Kiwi_Chickadee’s game bugged out, with the result being an absurd image that was shared on The Last of Us subreddit.
The image in question features Henry in a T-pose, the default pose for most character models in video games since it allows artists to add details and helps programmers make animations. While seeing Henry randomly strike a T-pose would be odd enough, the fact that he floats up into the sky is particularly strange. Sam looking up at his floating older brother only adds to the humor of the photo, with Ellie seemingly choosing to look away. However, the pose and floating instantly reminded Redditors like CaliberM1A of Stranger Things’ Vecna.
The main antagonist in Season 4 of Stranger Things, Vecna is a terrifying villain that kills his victims in a very specific way that just so happens to resemble Henry’s position. In the Netflix series, Vecna lifts people into the air before removing their eyes and breaking their limbs one by one. While nothing as terrible as this would have happened in Kiwi-Chickadee’s game, it is no surprise that fans instantly thought of Stranger Things when seeing this bug.
In the comments section, other fans of The Last of Us and Stranger Things were quick to continue the joke, with zachgray1091 mentioning Kate Bush and TacoSwimmer saying that Joel has to play Henry’s favorite song before it is too late. Both of these are nods to Max’s encounter with Vecna, a standout scene from Season 4 and a moment that has resulted in many memes. While the tones of The Last of Us and Stranger Things are quite different, as are the monsters of The Upside Down and the Clickers from Naughty Dog’s franchise, this unexpected crossover is a lot of fun.
As funny as the Vecna comparison is, hopefully Henry’s character model stays on the ground in The Last of Us Part 1. If he glitches out like this in the remake, the immersion could be ruined for a lot of first-time players.
The Last of Us Part 1 releases on September 2 for PS5. A PC version is in development.