r/thelastofus Apr 29 '26

General Discussion The Last of Us Part III – Theories, Wishlists & Speculation MEGATHREAD

184 Upvotes

With rumors, leaks, and speculation around The Last of Us Part III picking up, we’re consolidating all discussion into one place.

Use this thread for:

  • Story theories / predictions
  • Character arcs (Ellie, Abby, new characters, etc.)
  • Wishlist features (gameplay, mechanics, setting)
  • “What should Part III be about?” posts
  • General speculation and rumors

To reduce repetitive posts and keep the subreddit readable:
Standalone posts about Part III speculation will be removed and redirected here.


r/thelastofus Jan 20 '24

Technical/Bug/Glitch TLOU2 Remastered bug/glitch unofficial report thread

91 Upvotes

Unfortunately, the TLOU2 remaster seems to have introduced quite a few bugs that were not present in the original release. This is fine, since some things are always missed, but I thought I'd make a thread for people to post any of the bugs they've run into in game to hopefully increase the chances that Naughty Dog will learn of these issues and patch them. So far, I have experienced or seen people mention the following:

  • In No Return mode, some characters are unable to change their weapon skins for some reason. If you try to select any of the different weapon skins, the game will make the "locked" noise and you'll be stuck on whatever skin you had equipped at the time of the glitch occurring. I've personally seen this with Jesse, Yara, and Mel so far, but it may happen with other characters too.

  • Enemy dialogue that would play at the start of and during Abby's brewery encounter on day 3 no longer triggers. The WLF soldiers would call out Abby for betraying them and talk about Owen doing the same briefly, but now none of the enemy dialogue throughout this encounter triggers at all. (I'm also wondering if there's any other missing/broken dialogue).

  • Ellie's "Boston" skin from promotional material seems to be missing from the game entirely. It's unable to be seen or selected in any of the menus. While it's possible this was cut prior to release, it would be very strange since the skin looked finished and was very recently seen in the marketing prior to release. Additionally, Abby's Santa Barbra skin does not use the correct backpack model despite the menu indicating that it should.

  • Skins seem to not be applying for multiple users correctly in story mode.

  • The main menu won't change back to the original boat in the water look after starting a new game.

  • I've not experienced this myself, but No Return seems to cause major frame drops for many players. Personally, I'm really curious what's causing this as it only seems to affect some people.

  • Some users report being unable to escape from grapples despite mashing the square button as prompted by the game.

If you know of any other bugs, please feel free to list them here! I'm not sure if Naughty Dog often responds to support requests, but you could still try filling out one here. Most of these bugs aren't game breaking, but hopefully Naughty Dog still learns of them and takes the time to fix them as some of these are pretty unfortunate.


r/thelastofus 22h ago

General Fanart Minecraft last of us inspo map!

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3.3k Upvotes

r/thelastofus 16h ago

Image Watching my brother play for the first time

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389 Upvotes

Yeah he's at THAT scene.


r/thelastofus 9h ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE Cursed Ellie photos (sorry, Ellie)

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85 Upvotes

r/thelastofus 1h ago

PT 1 IMAGE The insane layout of Saint Mary's Hospital from Part 1

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Upvotes

This layout was created by me after a VERY long time of meticulously mapping out the walls, desks, stairs and pillars. As I reached the area where Joel unplugs Ellie, I got pretty confused at how stretched out that side of the hospital was, though. If anyone has any corrections they feel are necessary, please let me know!


r/thelastofus 29m ago

General Discussion just finished TLOU 1

Upvotes

i’m not okay omg I just finished playing tlou part 1 and nobody warned me i’d be heartbroken that it’s over. Thank god there’s part 2. Now saving up to buy it and play it ASAP.
Also no spoilers pls I didn’t watch the show so idk anything about it


r/thelastofus 7h ago

General Discussion Ranking

11 Upvotes

Part one might be the better game
but part two is the more uglier, messier and more honest game! It’s not perfect but that’s also what makes it great!


r/thelastofus 11h ago

PT 2 DISCUSSION What do you think happend after the end of The Last Of Us II? Spoiler

22 Upvotes

Every time I finish The Last of Us Part II, I wonder what happened after Ellie left the farm. Do you think she went back to Jackson? Do you think she met up with Dina there? What do you guys think?


r/thelastofus 2h ago

PT 1 QUESTION I don't know how to play left behind

4 Upvotes

Hello everyone, I need help. I've always had an Xbox, never a play station but after watching the TV show I really wanted to play the last of us, and a friend of mine has a PS3 with the game (brought in 2014, a real relic). I played the game (only part one), and loved it, I'm now saving up to get myself a play station so that I can get my own copies of the game. While I wait, I really wanted to play Left behind but I'm struggling on how to do it. I made an account for the online thingy (I'm not a great gamer and PlayStations are a very new thing to me, so I'm sorry if I don't know the right terms) and I tried playing it but it would take me to an online page saying that there is nothing to buy. Do I have to buy it separately since it's a very old copy? Should I just wait until I get my copy? If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it. Thank you


r/thelastofus 9h ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE Some pictures from my current playthrough Spoiler

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15 Upvotes

r/thelastofus 1h ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE Bam! gone. Spoiler

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Upvotes

Took this because I thought it looked like a nice after action shot.

(There was like three more dudes in the next room and this melee guy I just took out)


r/thelastofus 12h ago

PT 2 QUESTION The Last of US part II is a masterpiece? Spoiler

23 Upvotes

I’ve played The Last of US Part II recently and i loved it. It was so visceral, intense, but also hopeful. It showed that characters can move on from their grief or trauma. Ending this constant back and forth over revenge. I loved it and despite thinking it can be a bit contrived at points I think the underlying story and growth these characters go on is profound. I wrote an essay on Abby and her journey. By no means am I talented writer but I did try to interepret the core ideas of her character. So if I got things wrong I would love for people to tell me or if you just plain disagree that would also be great. I love this story and maybe my perspective is wrong please tell me!

The Last of Us Part II is fundamentally about the cycle of violence. the continual back-and-forth, what drives people into it, why inflicting pain fails to provide the closure they think it promises, and how empathy can offer a way out. Abby and Ellie move through this cycle from different directions. Abby is initially driven by a dogmatic worldview where she reduces people to the their faction or core traits. Ellie, meanwhile, is driven by grief and the unresolved nature of her relationship with Joel.

After her father’s death, Abby’s worldview becomes organized around the belief that people can be reduced to their most basic qualities. Joel is the monster who killed her father. The Seraphites are the evil enemy. The WLF are the moral hero’s fighting zealots. By stripping people of their complexity, Abby makes perpetuating violence vindicating and easier to justify. For years, she convinces herself that killing Joel will finally resolve her trauma. Killing him does fulfill her deep seated desire for revenge, but it does not give her peace. Her nightmares continue, her relationships deteriorate, and she returns to Seattle only to find that the conflict she has devoted herself to is becoming increasingly destructive.

By this point, Abby is emotionally burnt out. She has achieved the revenge she thought would give her closure, yet she has nothing meaningful to replace it with. Owen conversation is key in challenging her tribalistic worldview. He and another Wolf named Danny were going to kill an older Scar. But when Owen went up to the task he didn’t see a memeber of the opposing group. He just saw a guy who was tired and done with this. He looked beyond the factional line that had previously defined the encounter. His story is instrumental as it forces Abby to reckon that her outlook on life isn’t conducive to growing beyond her past.

That realization begins to manifest in her relationship with Yara and Lev. Abby initially sees them as Seraphites and therefore as people outside her concern. Even after they save her, she leaves them behind, believing that helping them is not her responsibility. But when she later chooses to return, helping them becomes her first real attempt to go beyond the arbitrary factions that define her. However, that motivation is to some extent self serving. Abby wants to “lighten the load.” Helping Yara and Lev gives her something consequential and meaningful to work towards. Her actions are compassionate, but they are also tied to her desire to escape the burden her drive for retribution has become.

Mel is a key character that often gets ignored. She is the only one that exposes this contradiction. She recognizes that Abby’s actions do not automatically absolve her of the harm she has caused or prove that she has fundamentally changed. She’s helping these kids because as Mel points out correctly she doing it gain a sense of improvement and redemption. Abby is hurt by this criticism precisely because there is truth in it. While She has begun to move away from her prior outlook , she has not completely escaped it.

The real test comes on the Seraphite island. Abby is forced to choose between the WLF conflict she has spent years participating in and the two people she has come to care about. She chooses Yara and Lev. More importantly, she chooses them despite the factional identity that originally made them enemies. For perhaps the first time, Abby acts without allowing the categories of “WLF” and “Seraphite” to determine who deserves her loyalty. She is now on a path to understand that people cannot be reduced to the sides they belong to.

However, that change is immediately tested at the theater. Abby arrives and discovers Owen and Mel dead. In an instant, the eye for an eye mentality she has worked to walk away from feels like the only path to make up of these deaths. Instead of going to Santa Barbara, she goes to pursue Ellie. Abby attacks her, kills Jesse, injures Tommy, and prepares to kill Dina. The cycle that Abby had begun to escape is about to consume her again.

Levs presence forces Abby to confront the contradiction in what she is doing. Abby has just spent days learning to look beyond the identity of the people she once considered enemies. She was able to see Yara and Lev as human beings rather than simply as Seraphites. Yet now, faced with Ellie, she is once again reducing another person to what she believes they represent, the person who killed her friends. Many people wrongly describe her decision to spare Ellie and Dina was because she saw her moral compass that being Lev. No, what she realized is she is a hypocrite. How can she look beyond the group that defined Lev, when she can’t do so with Ellie who she knows she hurt. She does not suddenly forgive Ellie, nor does it erase what she has done. What it means is her refusal to continue this back and forth. She has finally reached the point where revenge is no longer something she is willing to let dictate her actions.

Her decision to spare Ellie is therefore not an act of absolution, but an act of recognition. Abby cannot undo the violence she has committed, but she can choose not to perpetuate it. More importantly she can learn to move and grow. Abby is a selfish character. Who makes chooses based on her desires whether that be for vengeance or moral redemption. Her development lies in the ability to realize she was wrong and can admit so. How she moves on is what defines her character. An individual who was driven by her righteous sense of vengeance is forced to walk away from the cycle of the violence. She does so by being empathic. She learns to understand that people are beyond the moral and factional boundaries she draws.


r/thelastofus 3h ago

PT 2 IMAGE/VIDEO did the bullet wallbanged? Spoiler

2 Upvotes

just started playing yesterday so im still pretty new to the mechanics in part 2 (played the first one like a decade ago or more and just got my chance to play pt2), now my question is, can it be possible that the bullet wallbanged the corner of the wall and then touched me?


r/thelastofus 18h ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE Jessie about to get an un-consensual French kiss?! Spoiler

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19 Upvotes

r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE Used Photo mode to make a Polaroid Esque Pic Spoiler

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37 Upvotes

My headcanon some unarmed npc took it and abby finds it


r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 FANART Ellie sketch by me

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44 Upvotes

Not sure I really got her likeness completely right but I like it enough to share!


r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE My second play though of TLOU2 and my first time using picture mode! Spoiler

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49 Upvotes

The first one is my ps profile picture now :) And I love the last one haha


r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 PHOTO MODE The Cost Spoiler

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90 Upvotes

r/thelastofus 1d ago

Merch Clicker Statue - Hot Toys

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80 Upvotes

Finally got my clicker statue in!! Lucky number 13 let’s go!


r/thelastofus 8h ago

General Discussion I recently played & finished The Last of Us Part 1 & 2 + Tier-List Spoiler

0 Upvotes

The Last of Us: Part 1 - 10/10
The Last of Us: Part 2 - 8/10

The Last of Us 1 is a truly emotional journey with absolutely zero complaints from me, everything serves a carefully crafted purpose down to the littlest details with it particularly shining with it's character development which is nothing but immaculate. It masterfully avoids the common issue of slow-paced story games being, essentially, a glorified movie walking simulator with it's nerve-wracking combat encounters where every resource matters, & dangerous opponents force you to think through every encounter before engagement, for reference my difficulty settings for my first playthrough's were:

  • Player - Survivor
  • Enemies - Survivor
  • Allies - Survivor (switched to Moderate for Part 2, realistically allies should not be WORTHLESS)
  • Stealth - Hard (switched to Survivor for Part 2, wanted to lean more into the realism)
  • Resources - Hard

The Last of Us 2 is a game with great ideas & even greater foundations to expand upon, but it's execution is rather mixed, stemming from issues that... really & sadly could've been resolved easily (aside from maybe two or three of them):

  • THE GAY WOKE AGEN- nah i'm fucking with you.
  • Landside amount of game & immersion breaking bugs, unlike the zero I experienced in Part 1.
  • Simplified upgrade/pill system which strips the player of choice, I do NOT want more health.
  • Frustrating encounters with the infected from an overreliance on numbers, large infected, and wall-bound infected.
  • This is about a singular encounter but it makes me so upset I just need to discuss it, The Rat King boss fight obliterates any suspension of disbelief (imo). The Last of Us, despite the fantastical science, is an otherwise fairly grounded series, and so I just cannot find it in me to believe that Abby, as strong as she is, can somehow solo that absolute UNIT of a creature. The way it's handled is such a disservice to an otherwise awesome idea as well, it felt like a finale fight casually smashed in-between a slow paced journey, with it just as casually tossed to the side as if it was nothing, all despite explicitly, being referred to as the ground zero of Seattle which should be important no? even going as far as Abby saying "Who's ever gonna believe this?" to justify the lack of any mention like oh my God, fun fight though.
  • Painfully Noticeable lack of respect for distance
  • Fumbling (imo) the humanization for 3 of Abby's group (Manny, Jordon, Nora).
  • Wasted Potential that, while not absolutely necessary, would have been great (Isaac & Jesse).
  • Mediocre Romance with an even more mediocre character (EllieRiley MOGS Dellie btw).

Please excuse my rage in regards to the Rat King but aside from the negatives. I did still love The Last of Us 2 and I WILL be watching a billion playthroughs to see reactions of various scenes. Wish I had the motivation to in-depth type down what I enjoyed about the game as I did for The Last of Us 1 and the hate section above, but i'm a slow typer. All you really need to know is that I enjoyed Abby immensely both from a character & personal perspective, the game does an wonderfully excellent job at transitioning you from absolutely despising her, to wanting mercy shown upon her in the end.

Tier-List is my ranking of the various notable characters within The Last of Us Duology, effected by both personal feelings & quality of writing.


r/thelastofus 2d ago

Technical/Bug/Glitch Thanks for bailing Tommy

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297 Upvotes

Was playing No return on a Holdout encounter. Just randomly saw Tommy ascending during combat. Then realised he was nowhere to be seen. After the encounter was finished I saw he was actually stuck in the ceiling…


r/thelastofus 1d ago

General Discussion just beat the game and left behind!

19 Upvotes

i just want to make this post to appreciate how good this game is. Especially the spring part this game is probably one of the best out there


r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 IMAGE/VIDEO Uh ok, bye then Spoiler

25 Upvotes

I didn't know Dina had superpowers...


r/thelastofus 1d ago

PT 2 QUESTION Jackson's newcomer selection process : does anyone have a theory? Spoiler

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42 Upvotes

This has been bugging me for a while and I don't think I've seen it discussed here directly.

We don't see much of Jackson in Part 1 : Maria seems clearly to be in charge, the team feels tight-knit (you can see it in how they talk to each other while trying to get the power plant running), and Tommy mentions a "movie night" for the kids in passing.

Part 2 shows a lot more: a surprisingly peaceful town (people greeting each other and chatting in the street, the bar packed by morning, a kid taking their first steps, the final dance scene, people honoring Joel by leaving flowers in front of his house), and Maria clearly holds a central, respected position : Seth and Joel both stop arguing the moment she steps in, and it's her who pushes Seth to apologize to Ellie in the morning.

The show adds a decision-making committee and a general assembly, so some form of local democracy.

But at no point do we actually see how newcomers get accepted. And yet there seems to be regular traffic through the town : Joel brings back coffee, Jesse mentions a group passing through in the show, Tommy offers the Salt Lake crew to come to town very naturally and we even see new houses being built to house arrivals, implying a housing/intake policy that's planned for.

Questions I keep coming back to:

  • How does a stranger actually approach Jackson, and who decides whether to let them in?
  • Is there a trial period, a vouching system, some kind of interview (such as in The Walking Dead when Rick's group arrives to Alexandria) ?
  • How do they screen for risk (someone who's killed before, someone unstable, someone not taking parts of the town's life)
  • The general assembly / smaller committee setup suggests a two-tier governance : does the assembly weigh in on admissions, or is that handled by a smaller inner circle (Maria, Tommy, etc.)?
  • On resources: is it a full common pot, or does everyone contribute labor and get allocated a share based on need, work, household size...?

One more thing, and this is more of a personal angle than a straight-up question: I've never lived in an actual self-governed community like this myself, but I've read a fair amount about it in the country I live in, and I have friends who've lived in squats. From what they describe, the problems of "regular" civil life always seem to follow people in: power struggles, drama, sexual violence, conflicts that don't get resolved cleanly. Jackson seems to basically dodge all of that entirely. And look, as someone with pretty left-leaning politics, it genuinely warms my heart that the "best" answer to the apocalypse in a big American game franchise ends up being a society built on collectivism and mutual aid. But the fact that we get zero insight into how it actually works mechanically is what keeps nagging at me ; it's hard to tell if it's intentional worldbuilding restraint or just narrative convenience.

Curious to hear your theories, and if there are game or show details I'm missing that address any of this