By now, we all know what the synopsis of The Last of Us is about — Joel is escorting a young girl…

By now, we all know what the synopsis of The Last of Us is about — Joel is escorting a young girl named Ellie to a resistance group that might know how to create a cure for a virus spread by cordyceps fungi. However, in an interview with The Verge, Neil Druckmann, the game’s director, revealed that there was a version of the game that was, well, gender-specific.

A pitch for an early iteration, dubbed Mankind, still had the concept of the cordyceps fungi and the infection that came as a result of it, but in this iteration, only women were prone to the virus. Ellie was the only woman immune to the virus, with Joel still having the task of bringing her to a lab where, hopefully, a cure can be made.

According to Druckmann, however, several female Naughty Dog employees voiced their concerns over such a concept, with the pitch ultimately failing. “The reason it failed is because it was a misogynistic idea,” said Druckmann.

Source: The Verge via Gameranx