‘The Last Of Us’: Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for both seasons of The Last Of Us.

HBO‘s television adaptation of the Sony Playstation game The Last Of Us took several departures from its source material in Season 1, with the creative direction of Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, who is also responsible for the award-winning game.

Season 2, which has only just begun, also splits off here and there from The Last of Us Part II — the sequel RPG game of which it is based.

Below find an in depth breakdown of the major changes to the narrative in the television adaptation.

Season 2

Abby’s Physique & Motive

Fans were quick to point out that Kaitlyn Dever, who portrays Abby in HBO’s adaptation of the video game, does not match Abby’s build in the game itself. However, Druckmann has already explained why Dever’s physique was not a concern when casting her for the role.

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“We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters…. We don’t value as much, ‘Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?’ Whatever it is. It’s not nowhere on the priority list, but it’s below a bunch of other things that we consider,” he previously told Entertainment Weekly.

Another huge change from The Last of Us Part II involves the revelation that Abby is a former member of the Fireflies, the militia group that Joel is delivering Ellie to in the first game/season in the hope of finding a cure for an Infected bite using Ellie’s immunity. In the beginning of the Season 2 premiere, viewers learn that Abby has a personal connection to someone who was killed in the hospital when Joel murdered everyone in his path to save Ellie from her own demise — and she vows to make Joel pay. In the video game, viewers are not privy to Abby’s motives or her backstory until much later, even playing as her at times without fully knowing who the character is.

Joel’s Death

In the second episode, Joel goes out on patrol with Dina and, as they’re seeking shelter from a snowstorm, stumble upon Abby being chased by a horde of Infected. This sequence unfolds a bit differently in the game, as Tommy is on patrol with Joel, not Dina. However, much of the remainder of the sequence is very similar to the game.

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Abby offers to let them seek shelter at the lodge that she and her friends are in. When they arrive, Abby introduces the strangers she’s brought, and the crew set to work knocking out Dina (in the game, Tommy) and brutally murdering Joel. As Abby is beating Joel to death, Ellie walks in and is tackled, forced to watch as Abby delivers the killing blow.

The Horde of Infected Resurrecting From Snow

In the game, Abby is being chased by a horde of infected when Joel finds and saves her. This also happens in the series, except the horde of Infected then descends upon Jackson and breaches the town.

Season 1

Pilot Episode’s Talk Show Opening

The talk show that opened the very first episode of The Last Of Us Season 1, in which two doctors were being interviewed about a potential pandemic related to cordyceps, only happened in the TV show. The video game takes viewers back to the early days of the cordyceps infection, but the show takes it back even further to a fictional 1968 TV program in which one researcher pitches the problem of a potential fungal infection that global warming could accelerate.

The Timeline

The pilot episode introduces a slightly different timeline in the TV show versus the video game. The game begins in 2013 before jumping to a post-apocalyptic future set in 2033, while the show starts in 2003, and the 20-year time jump leads to post-pandemic 2023, which was the year the show launched its first season.

Sarah’s Story Is More Prominent

The show spends much more time on Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) daughter Sarah, who gets his watch repaired and wants to celebrate his birthday, which falls just short of Outbreak Day, or September 26.

Tess & Joel’s Relationship

In the game, the relationship between Tess (Anna Torv) and Joel is less romantic, but the show suggests they are more than friends and partners in crime in a few ways, through a scene in which Tess embraces Joel in bed one night and then also Bill’s (Nick Offerman) letter to Joel telling him to use what he and Frank (Murray Bartlett) left behind to protect Tess.

The Way Cordyceps Spreads

In the game, spores are a huge threat to players as when ingested, the funges can start to grow inside the body, but the show stresses direct contact as more of the ultimate way people get infected — specifically being bitten.

Craig Mazin, who developed the series with Druckmann, previously explained that the elimination of the spores was a practical move, given that, in reality, spores would likely spread very quickly into open air and infect most of the population. Anyone who was not infected would need to wear a mask at all times, which would not make for interesting television.

Tommy’s Absence

In the show, Joel has lost contact with Tommy for a bit after they would contact each other regularly via radio while Tommy was in Wyoming. In the game, the pair are separated seemingly because they aren’t close anymore.

The Scientist In Jakarta

Christine Hakim’s Dr. Ratna Pertiwi, who was tracked down by the Indonesian government to secretly identify a cordyceps-infected woman, is introduced in Episode 2 of the show. This background context sequence is not in the video game. The game focuses more on the outbreak within the U.S., so this addition to the show suggests Jakarta was the starting point of the infection where Patient Zero bit the dead woman.

Ellie’s Immunity

In the game, Tess and Joel become convinced that Ellie can’t be infected because she inhales spores and doesn’t come down with the disease. Of course, with the shift from spores to direct contact through bites, Ellie in the show has a bite and some scarring from when the infection attempted to take hold in her body after the fateful night where an Infected person bit her and her best friend Riley (Storm Reid).

The show also has her get bit again, which ultimately solidifies her status as someone immune to cordyceps. The show fleshes out this backstory in the finale.

Tess’ Death

In the game, Tess is killed by FEDRA agents that tracked the trio outside the QZ. Tess takes a stand in the show against a horde of Infected because she is herself also infected and knows she only has so much time left either way.

Ellie’s Love of Mortal Kombat

In the video game, Ellie finds an arcade cabinet for The Turning, rather than Mortal Kombat, which alludes to her love of Mortal Kombat II.

Bill & Frank’s Love Story

The third episode in Season 1, which tells the story of how Bill and Frank met, is one of the biggest departures from the video game. In the game, Bill hasn’t died before Joel and Ellie get to him, and he has actually split from Frank by that point.

Kansas City

Instead of Kansas City like in the show, the game watches Joel and Ellie head to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after visiting Bill’s compound. Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen also does not exist in the video game. Her show character amalgamates a few different characters from the game.

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The pit of Infected people who were banished underground in KC also does not show up in the game, though the show has quite a sequence involving a pack of them overrunning Pittsburgh. That moment also introduces a Bloater — the type of infected person covered from head to toe in cordyceps mushrooms with the split apart brain of a Clicker. The Bloater actually first show’s up in Bill’s section of the game.

Ellie’s “First” Kill

In the video game, Ellie kills a raider attacking Joel, but the show has her stab a raider whom Joel delivers the final killing blow to.

Henry and Sam

Ellie and Joel bump into Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam Burrell (Keivonn Woodard) on the street in Pittsburgh versus the pair of brothers sneaking up on Ellie and Joel in their sleep.

Sam’s deafness depicted prominently in the show, is not as specific in the game. Henry’s FEDRA informant backstory is unique to the show, as is the lack of Infected people in the Kansas City tunnels the quartet navigates. Ellie’s application of her blood to Sam’s infected wound also doesn’t appear in the game.

Wyoming

The couple Ellie and Joel encounter at the beginning of Episode 6 in The Last of Us Season 1 are not present in the video game.

When Ellie and Joel find Tommy and his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley) at their compound in Jackson, Wyoming in the show, Tommy tells Joel that Maria is pregnant. She is not expecting a baby in the video game.

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Joel also does not have panic attacks in the game like he does in the show in Wyoming.

Ellie’s Response to Joel Asking Tommy to Escort Her the Rest of the Way West

In the game, when Ellie overhears the brothers talking about passing her off to Tommy for the remainder of what would have been her journey with Joel, she runs away.

Joel’s Wound at Eastern Colorado Campus

Joel fell onto a metal rod in the game to cause his near-fatal puncture wound that a raider gives to him by stabbing him with a knife in the show.

Ellie and Riley’s Backstory

In Episode 7 of The Last of Us Season 1, Ellie flashes back to the story of how she first got bit by an Infected person in an abandoned mall. In the game, this flashback is brought about when Ellie is forced to scavenge for supplies to try and heal Joel’s wound in a different mall, but that sequence changes in the show when she finds a needle and thread in the kitchen of an abandoned house where she leaves him.

The show also expands Ellie’s time at the FEDRA academy where she met Riley. Riley and Ellie also attempt to play The Turning in the mall in the game vs. Mortal Kombat II in the show. Riley’s Firefly status is not as clear in the game when she takes Ellie to the mall, while she was stationed there in the show.

Riley and Ellie’s encounter with the single Infected in the show was made different from the horde they face in the video game.

Ellie’s Birth

The details of Ellie’s mother Anna (Ashley Johnson, who voices Ellie in the game) giving birth to her as they unfold in the show are not seen in the game. Anna being bitten by an Infected person before she cut Ellie’s umbilical chord expands the lore of why Ellie is immune. This is not explicitly laid out in the game, but as Marlene (Merle Dandridge) says in the show, a doctor thinks Ellie is immune to infection because the cordyceps in her has grown with her since her birth, and anytime she was infected with the other strain, her natural one would fend it off, making the fungal cordyceps infecting everyone else think Ellie was already cordyceps.

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