98 Fun Facts About The Last of Us

What is Joel's primary objective when first tasked with escorting Ellie in The Last of Us?

Joel initially agrees to transport Ellie to the Fireflies, a revolutionary group hoping to use her immunity to develop a cure for the Cordyceps infection.

Which infected stage in The Last of Us has a face split open by fungal plates?

Clickers are blind because the fungus has burst through the face, so the clicking is how they see; they have been infected for a year or more.

Which Canadian province was the primary filming location for the first season of HBO's The Last of Us?

Despite its many American settings, the whole first season was shot in Alberta, making it the largest television production ever filmed in the province and possibly in Canada.

Which animals do Joel and Ellie stop to watch near the end of the first game?

Near the end of the first game, Joel and Ellie pause to watch a herd of giraffes grazing among overgrown city ruins, a calm moment before the final hospital chapter.

In The Last of Us's prologue, Joel's daughter is shot by a soldier on outbreak night; what is her name?

Sarah dies in Joel's arms on outbreak night, and the broken watch she gave him stays on his wrist for the rest of the story.

What is the name of Ellie's horse in The Last of Us Part II?

Ellie's horse in Part II is Shimmer, who carries her and Dina out of Jackson on their hunt for Abby; Joel's horse in the first game was named Callus.

Which faction fights the Washington Liberation Front for Seattle in The Last of Us Part II?

The Seraphites, whom the WLF derisively call 'Scars' for their ritual facial cuts, fight the militia for Seattle and are the group Lev and Yara flee.

Who voices and performs Joel in The Last of Us games, winning Best Voice Actor at the 2013 Spike VGX awards?

Troy Baker plays Joel in the games and also appears in the HBO series, as James in the cannibal episode; Nolan North is Naughty Dog's Nathan Drake.

The original The Last of Us arrived in June 2013 as one of the last big exclusives for which PlayStation console?

The PS3 got it in June 2013, five months before its successor launched, which is why a remaster followed so quickly.

In the original game's Factions multiplayer, each match is one day; how long is a full clan journey?

In the Factions multiplayer mode, players manage a clan of survivors over a period of 12 in-game weeks, with each match representing one day.

Which infected stage wears fungal armor and lobs corrosive spore sacs?

Bloaters are a later stage of infection with significant fungal armor and the dangerous ability to throw mycotoxin pouches.

Who portrays Ellie in the HBO television adaptation of The Last of Us?

Bella Ramsey plays Ellie in the HBO series; the casting was announced in February 2021, and Ramsey earned a lead-actress Emmy nomination for the role in 2023.

What is the name of Ellie's best friend, who is featured in the Left Behind downloadable content?

The Left Behind DLC explores Ellie's past and her relationship with her best friend, Riley Abel.

The Cordyceps fungus behind the infection in The Last of Us is inspired by a real fungus that affects what organisms?

The Cordyceps fungus in the game is inspired by real parasitic fungi that are known to infect and control the behavior of insects, such as ants.

Which settlement led by Joel's brother do Joel and Ellie settle in?

After their journey, Joel and Ellie find a measure of peace in Jackson, Wyoming, a walled community with its own hydroelectric dam run partly by Joel's brother.

Neil Druckmann's zombie-game concept that became The Last of Us was inspired by which game's gameplay?

Neil Druckmann's early pitch for a game about a zombie apocalypse, which laid the groundwork for The Last of Us, was inspired by the gameplay of the game ICO.

In the first game, which character is Joel's smuggling partner in the Boston quarantine zone?

Tess is Joel's hardened smuggling partner and close acquaintance in the early parts of their journey through the Boston quarantine zone.

What is Ellie's signature melee weapon in the first game?

Ellie's signature weapon in the first game is a switchblade, which never breaks, unlike the craftable shivs Joel relies on; she still carries it in Part II.

How old is Ellie during the main events of The Last of Us Part II?

Ellie is 19 during Part II's main story, now a seasoned Jackson patrol member rather than the young teenager Joel escorted across the country in the first game.

Which character in the first game is a survivalist and trap-maker living in an isolated, fortified town?

Bill is a paranoid and resourceful survivalist who has booby-trapped his town to keep out both the infected and other humans.

What is the official release date for the PlayStation 5 remake, The Last of Us Part I?

The remake of the first game, titled The Last of Us Part I, was released for the PlayStation 5 on September 2, 2022.

Where in Seattle is the WLF's main base in The Last of Us Part II?

The WLF's Seattle headquarters is a football stadium, converted to hold crops and livestock on the pitch; the aquarium is only the hideout used by Owen and Mel.

How does Cordyceps most often pass from host to host in The Last of Us games?

Bites from infected creatures do most of the spreading, though a dead host also releases spores in enclosed spaces, which is why the games hand out gas masks.

Who composed the scores for The Last of Us video games and the HBO adaptation?

Gustavo Santaolalla scored both games and the HBO series, sharing the show's credit with David Fleming; he had earlier won back-to-back Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Babel.

In The Last of Us Part II, which WLF member and former Firefly is Abby's ex-boyfriend?

Owen, Abby's ex, goes missing while scouting the Seraphites and dreams of sailing to Santa Barbara to find the regrouping Fireflies.

Which infected, found in wetter climates, bursts into acidic spores when killed?

Shamblers, introduced in Part II, appear mostly in the damp Pacific Northwest; they spray acid clouds in combat and burst into a final corrosive cloud when killed.

The HBO series adaptation of The Last of Us premiered in what year?

It premiered on HBO on January 15, 2023.

Which cannibal leader does Ellie encounter during winter in The Last of Us Part I?

David leads the winter chapter's cannibals; Ellie hacks him to death with his own machete inside a burning restaurant, and Joel finds her moments later.

What does The Last of Us call the earliest stage of Cordyceps infection?

Runners are the freshly infected, still human-looking and fast, and they swarm in packs; the longer the fungus has a host, the slower and tougher it gets.

Whom does Pedro Pascal play in the HBO series?

Joel Miller is Pascal's second surrogate-father role after The Mandalorian's Din Djarin; he earned a 2023 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

In The Last of Us Part II, what is the name of Ellie's girlfriend?

Dina is Ellie's girlfriend and accompanies her on her quest for revenge in The Last of Us Part II.

The second season of the HBO series adapts how much of the sequel game?

Season two adapts only the first half of The Last of Us Part II, with the remainder held back for a further season.

What is the armored infected creature in The Last of Us Part II formed by hosts fusing over decades?

The Rat King, encountered in The Last of Us Part II, is a monstrous super-organism formed by several infected individuals fused together, representing the final stage of infection.

Who played Marlene in the games and again in the HBO series?

Dandridge voiced the Fireflies' leader in the games, then played her in the flesh for HBO.

In the HBO series, what does Joel tell Ellie he did for a living before the outbreak?

Riding out of Jackson, Joel tells Ellie he was a contractor and jokes that everybody loved contractors, one of the few glimpses of his life before the collapse.

Which infected stage in The Last of Us is the second in the fungus's progression?

Stalkers are an intermediate stage of infection known for their stealthy behavior, hiding in dark corners and ambushing unsuspecting victims.

What is the name of Joel's brother?

Tommy is Joel's younger brother, a former Firefly who runs a walled settlement with his wife; Jeffrey Pierce voices him in the games.

What is the name of the WLF dog Ellie kills at the aquarium in Part II?

Alice is the WLF dog Abby plays fetch with between missions; Ellie kills her at the aquarium, and Abby later finds her body there beside Owen and Mel.

Which military organization maintains authoritarian order in the game's quarantine zones?

FEDRA, the Federal Disaster Response Agency, is the martial-law government the Fireflies are fighting; the WLF and the Rattlers are Part II factions.

Which Firefly surgeon, Abby's father, does Joel kill at the end of the first game?

Jerry Anderson was the head Firefly surgeon in Salt Lake City, killed so Joel could carry Ellie out alive.

The Last of Us Remastered (2014) was released for which console?

PS4 owners got Remastered in July 2014, barely a year after the original, with higher resolution, 60 frames per second and the Left Behind DLC bundled in.

What fear of Abby's does The Last of Us Part II repeatedly play on?

Abby has a fear of heights, which the game plays up when Lev leads her across the sky bridges between Seattle high-rises on the way to the hospital.

In the original game's Factions multiplayer, players pick one of which two groups?

Factions pitted the Hunters against the Fireflies, with each match counting as one day in the life of your survivor clan.

Who plays Tess in the HBO series?

Anna Torv plays Tess in the HBO series' opening episodes; Annie Wersching, who voiced and performed Tess in the original game, died in January 2023.

In the opening sequence, from which city's suburbs do Joel and his family try to flee the outbreak?

The prologue follows Joel, his brother and his daughter escaping the chaos in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, on the night the outbreak begins.

Who voices and performs Ellie in The Last of Us games, and appears on the HBO show as Ellie's mother Anna?

Ashley Johnson voices and performs Ellie in both games and plays Ellie's mother Anna in the HBO season-one finale, bitten by an infected while giving birth.

What is the name of Dina's baby son in The Last of Us Part II?

Dina's baby boy is JJ, born after Jesse's death; Ellie helps raise him on a quiet farm before leaving to hunt Abby in Santa Barbara.

Which BBC nature documentary's segment on the Cordyceps fungus inspired the game's infected?

The BBC's Planet Earth, in its 2006 Jungles episode, showed Cordyceps erupting from an ant; Naughty Dog cited that sequence as the seed of the game's fungal apocalypse.

While one Naughty Dog team made The Last of Us, the other was developing which game?

Naughty Dog split into two teams for the first time: one finished Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception for 2011 while the other began The Last of Us.

Who served as game director on the original 2013 game alongside creative director Neil Druckmann?

Straley did not return to co-direct the sequel, which had two co-game directors instead.

The Last of Us was first announced in December 2011 at which event?

The debut trailer ran at the December 10, 2011 show, and the announcement was credited with instant industry anticipation thanks to Naughty Dog's reputation.

After missing a planned May 7 release, the original game launched worldwide on which date?

The game launched worldwide on June 14, 2013, pushed back from May 7 for extra polish; retailers sold special pre-order editions to build anticipation.

How many copies did the original sell in its first week, 2013's biggest launch at the time?

The original sold 1.3 million copies in its first week, 2013's biggest launch to that point, and passed 3.4 million after three weeks, the best for a new IP since L.A. Noire.

Which original multiplayer game type had teams race to capture the enemy's lockbox?

Interrogation had teams interrogate downed enemies to reveal the location of the other side's lockbox, then capture it; Supply Raid and Survivors were team deathmatch variants.

How many episodes are in the HBO series' first season?

Season one runs nine episodes, opening with 'When You're Lost in the Darkness' and closing with 'Look for the Light'; season two was shorter still, at seven.

The infected's signature clicks were inspired by a 20/20 report about what?

A 20/20 segment on blind children clicking to navigate by echolocation gave Druckmann the infected's sound; he liked attaching a benign noise to something frightening.

Robert Polidori's photographs of which disaster guided the art team's flooded city areas?

Robert Polidori's photographs of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina guided the flooded areas; the team prized them for showing a human world rather than grey post-apocalyptic rot.

Which publisher released the 2013 prequel comic The Last of Us: American Dreams?

Dark Horse Comics published the four-issue American Dreams in 2013, written by Druckmann and Faith Erin Hicks with Hicks on art, introducing Ellie's friend from Left Behind.

The first season's budget exceeded each of the first five seasons of which HBO series?

Season one cost more than CA$100 million, over $10 million an episode, a budget that outstripped each of Game of Thrones' first five seasons.

In Left Behind, Ellie and her best friend dance to an Etta James recording of which song?

The song is Etta James's 'I Got You Babe'; the girls plug Ellie's Walkman into a Halloween store's sound system and dance, and the music ends up drawing infected.

Left Behind was released as downloadable content on which date in 2014?

The Valentine's Day release fit a story about Ellie's first kiss; a standalone version followed in May 2015.

In Left Behind's Colorado mall, Ellie finds a medical kit inside what?

The helicopter has smashed through the mall roof, and Ellie must fight back to the unconscious Joel with the supplies.

How old is Ellie when Marlene hires the smugglers to move her in the first game?

Ellie is fourteen when Marlene hands her over in the Boston quarantine zone, bitten three weeks earlier yet showing no sign of turning.

In The Last of Us Remastered, what does the DualShock 4 light bar signal?

The light bar tracks player health, changing colour as Joel takes damage; the DualShock 4's speaker also plays back the audio recordings you collect.

In the first game, Ellie meets the brothers Henry and Sam in which city?

Ellie and Joel meet Henry and Sam in Pittsburgh, a city overrun by Hunters who stage fake injured civilians to ambush passing vehicles.

In the first game, Ellie must be floated across water on pallets because she cannot do what?

Ellie cannot swim, so Joel pushes her across water on wooden pallets; the puzzles are among the game's few non-combat set pieces and later double as quiet conversation beats.

Which company released the 2024 tabletop game The Last of Us: Escape the Dark?

Themeborne, the studio behind Escape the Dark Castle, released The Last of Us: Escape the Dark in 2024 after a Kickstarter campaign; CMON announced a separate board game in 2020.

Leaked Sony documents put Part II's development cost at roughly how much?

Documents leaked in the 2023 Insomniac hack listed Part II at roughly $220 million, developed over about 70 months with a peak of around 200 full-time staff.

Series co-creator Neil Druckmann was born in which city?

Neil Druckmann was born in Tel Aviv in 1978; his family moved to the United States in 1989 and he went to school in Miami before studying at Florida State.

Who composed Part II's combat music, hired for his work on Mr. Robot?

Mac Quayle, Emmy-winning composer of Mr. Robot, wrote Part II's combat cues; he bought a PlayStation 4 and the first game to learn the series, finishing in January 2020.

Along with Pearl Jam's 'Future Days', which 1980s hit did Naughty Dog license for Part II?

Ellie plays A-ha's 'Take On Me' on guitar for Dina in a Seattle music shop; 'Future Days' is the Pearl Jam song Joel sings to her in a flashback.

The franchise's score composer comes from which country?

The composer comes from Argentina, born in El Palomar outside Buenos Aires; approached early in development, he was told only the story and themes, not given specific directions.

The first game's final chapter, at a Firefly hospital, is set where?

The finale takes place at the Fireflies' hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah; Ellie returns there in a Part II flashback and learns what Joel really did.

Who plays Jesse in the HBO series?

Young Mazino, of Beef, plays Jesse in season two; his casting was announced in January 2024 alongside Kaitlyn Dever as Abby and Isabela Merced as Dina.

How many copies did Part II sell in its release weekend?

Part II sold 4 million copies in its first three days, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive, ahead of Marvel's Spider-Man's 3.3 million.

How many awards did The Last of Us Part II win at The Game Awards 2020?

Part II won seven awards at The Game Awards 2020, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative and Innovation in Accessibility, from the most nominations that night.

Which game first surpassed Part II's record tally of Game of the Year awards?

Elden Ring, released in 2022, overtook Part II's tally of more than 320 Game of the Year awards; Part II had itself broken the mark set by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

What Metacritic critic score does The Last of Us Part II hold?

Part II holds a Metacritic critic score of 93, even as its user score was review-bombed below 4 out of 10 in the days after release.

In Part II's final fight, how many of Ellie's fingers are bitten off?

Abby bites two fingers off Ellie's left hand in the Santa Barbara fight, which is why Ellie can no longer play Joel's guitar properly in the closing scene.

Which actress plays Gail, the therapist in season two?

Catherine O'Hara plays Gail, the town therapist and Eugene's widow, a character created for the show who sees straight through Joel's posturing.

Owners of Part II could upgrade digitally to the 2024 Remastered version for how much?

The Part II Remastered upgrade cost $10 for existing owners when it launched on PlayStation 5 in January 2024; reviewers praised the price even while questioning remastering a four-year-old game.

A July 2025 Part II Remastered update added skins for Joel and Tommy based on which game?

The skins dress Joel as Nathan Drake and Tommy as Sam Drake from Uncharted 4: A Thief's End; the same July 2025 update added a chronological story mode.

Which museum inducted the original game into its World Video Game Hall of Fame?

The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York inducted The Last of Us in May 2023, a decade after release, alongside Wii Sports and Computer Space.

What creature is Ellie's forearm tattoo in Part II?

Ellie's forearm tattoo is a moth among fern leaves, covering her bite scar; artist Natalie Hall settled the design by drawing it on a developer's arm to test it.

Mazin first worked with the Gowers, the infected's prosthetics designers, on which series?

Mazin first worked with Barrie and Sarah Gower on Chernobyl; for the infected, Gower avoided sunken-eyed zombie clichés and built a library of fungi textures instead.

Which actress won Best Performance at The Game Awards 2020 for Part II?

Laura Bailey won Best Performance for Abby; Druckmann had initially resisted casting her because she was in so many games and had first considered her for Dina.

Who voices Dina in Part II?

Shannon Woodward voices Dina; co-writer Halley Gross, who had worked with her on Westworld, introduced her to Druckmann.

Which actor plays WLF leader Isaac in both Part II and the HBO series?

Jeffrey Wright voices Isaac in Part II and reprises him on screen in HBO's season two; critics called his Isaac captivating and menacing.

Which season-one rebel is played by a voice performer who had a main role in the games?

Perry, Kathleen's second-in-command, is played by Jeffrey Pierce, the voice of Joel's brother in both games; he dies in the infected swarm of episode five.

Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen leads a revolutionary movement where?

Kathleen leads the Kansas City rebels in episodes four and five; critics praised Lynskey for juxtaposing humanity and viciousness in the role.

The HBO series moved the outbreak from the game's 2013 to which year?

The show moved the outbreak to 2003, ten years earlier than the game's Outbreak Day of 26 September 2013, keeping the main story twenty years after the collapse.

In season one, what replaced the games' spores as the way infection spreads?

Season one replaced spores with tendrils, inspired by mycelium networks, so characters could go without gas masks; spores returned in a limited way in season two.

The episode 'Long, Long Time' is named for a 1970 song by which singer?

Linda Ronstadt recorded 'Long Long Time' in 1970; Frank plays it on the piano when he and Bill first meet, and it plays on cassette as Joel and Ellie drive away.

Who directed 'Long, Long Time', winning the Directors Guild award for it?

Peter Hoar directed 'Long, Long Time', which drew 6.4 million first-day viewers and an Emmy nomination for directing; critics overwhelmingly called it the season's best episode.

Nick Offerman's Emmy win for the series came in which category?

Nick Offerman won Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series at the 2023 Emmys for playing Bill; his episode co-star was nominated in the same category, and Storm Reid won the guest actress award.

Who plays Frank in the HBO series' third episode?

Murray Bartlett plays Frank opposite Nick Offerman's Bill in 'Long, Long Time'; fresh from The White Lotus, he earned an Emmy nomination, and Complex called both performances career-best work.

Which slave-keeping group captures Abby and Lev in Part II's Santa Barbara chapter?

The Rattlers, a slaver gang based in Santa Barbara, leave Abby and Lev strung up on the beach; Ellie cuts them down before forcing Abby into their final fight.

In the HBO series' second episode, a mycologist urges which government to bomb its capital?

Indonesia's capital Jakarta hosts the cold open: Christine Hakim's mycologist Ratna Pertiwi examines an infected factory worker and tells officials the only option is to bomb the city.