What Happened If You Called The Phone Numbers In The Last Of Us
When The Last of Us was released in 2013, the game was critically acclaimed for its emotional story and solid gameplay. Although the game was praised, it did have some growing pains. The Last of Us dealt with controversies surrounding misogyny in the original version of the game, a fued with Elliot Page, and to top it all off, a dirty Easter egg that only the very observant noticed. Being an immensely story and character-driven game, The Last of Us was filled with so many little details to help bring it all to life. The problem that developers didn't realize was that they might have been a little too detailed.
Something that many fans noticed was the implementation of phone numbers on different flyers throughout the game. These flyers either promoted pest control or handyman services that contained full ten-digit phone numbers. And thanks to an oversight by the game's artists, these phone numbers actually worked. But if players called these numbers, they were met with something a little unexpected.
Phone numbers in The Last of Us provided players with a different kind of service
The functioning phone numbers on the flyers that were present in The Last of Us connected players to adult hotlines. Michael Fahey, a writer for Kotaku, even recorded the results and uploaded it onto SoundCloud for everyone to listen to. Be warned, it's definitely NSFW.
This actually wasn't intentional. In an interview with Kotaku, the game's creative director Neil Druckmann explained that this was an oversight made by artists. It turns out they were under the impression that by changing a number's area code to 555 would invalidate the call. However, this rule only applies under certain circumstances.
"It's what they do in the movies," Druckmann said. "But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it."
This dirty "Easter egg" was quickly patched out a month after the game's release. The current version of The Last of Us no longer has these scandalous services, but it's something that fans of the series will never forget. While the game's sequel was plenty controversial, at least it didn't have to deal with the same kind of problem.