"The Last of Us Part I" - The Story Quiz

Answer: Sarah

On one fateful night in Texas, Sarah is awakened by Joel when he gets home from work. She should be asleep, but it's his birthday, and she wanted to be there to gift him a watch. He eventually carries her to bed after they spend a bit of time together on the couch.

The phone rings in the middle of the night and wakes Sarah up. It's Uncle Tommy. The call is short, but something is wrong. As the phone dies, Sarah starts getting hints that something amiss-- the news indicates that a pandemic is spreading while explosions commence on the skyline outside. Joel rushes into the house to grab a gun from his desk, using it on the boy next door when he crashes, ravenously, through their sliding glass door.

Joel and Sarah rush out of the house to Tommy's waiting car and they drive off, intending to pass by the city but inadvertently going through it when the route to the interstate is blocked. As people in their path start getting attacked, they watch the devastation unfold and, inevitably, get into a car crash. It forces them to flee on foot, barely escaping the chaos, until Joel and Sarah are met by a man in a soldier's uniform who opens fire. Joel and Tommy manage to survive the encounter (with Tommy shooting back), but Sarah takes a mortal wound to the stomach and bleeds out.

Answer: A smuggler

Twenty years after the initial outbreak, the world is different. In the summertime, Joel wakes up in the Boston Quarantine Zone on the east coast to Tess knocking on his door. The pair of them, both smugglers, head out to make a deal with Robert just as the Fireflies, a group of rebels, attack the city. The event closes a number of the city's checkpoints, so the pair need to take the long way around, passing through constructed tunnels around the city's walls. As it turns out, Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, is looking for Robert as well.

Joel and Tess will pass through the tunnels and the warehouses near the docks and finally catch up to Robert, but it'll turn out that he sold their gun shipment to the Fireflies already, preparing them for their attack. Tess will act quick, killing Robert for setting them up, but fortunately for her and Joel, Marlene will be nearby and she'll provide a proposition for their weapons. If the two of them are willing to smuggle something out of the city, she'll give 'em back. She can't go, herself, and this is their only shot.

The package to deliver ends up being a teenage girl-- Ellie-- who refuses to reveal why she's so important. All Joel and Tess need to do is get her to the Capitol Building across the Quarantine Zone, and they can do that via the north tunnel. They just need to pick the right moment and head out.

Answer: Joel

It'll be raining that night when Joel wakes up, and after Tess arrives, the trio will head out on foot, proceeding into the rain with the aim to get out of the Quarantine Zone bound for the Capitol. They'll be caught by a patrol almost immediately and be scanned for infection, and that's when the shoe will drop-- Ellie is infected, having been bit three weeks earlier. The catch is that people normally change after one or two days. They decide to plod along with the mission in any case; the Fireflies have their own quarantine zone and doctors to find a cure. Ellie might be the key to finding a vaccine.

The route will pass through parts of ruined Boston as the group navigates the Goldstone Building, the subway, and a museum, and along the way they'll start to encounter Clickers and Runners, the creatures transformed by the Cordyceps parasites. Eventually they'll reach the Capitol though, and it's there that Tess will become frantic, eager to find the Fireflies against her character. It's because she's infected, having been bitten during a fight an hour earlier.

With their rendezvous foiled, Tess tells Joel to get Ellie to Tommy's-- he'll know where Marlene's Fireflies are located, and it's the right thing to do; there's something there behind Ellie's immunity-- and she'll stay back to hold the soldiers back as long as she can.

Joel and Ellie will head out alone, breaking into the nearby subway and emerging out the other side to find relative safety. It's here that Joel will lay out ground rules: they don't talk about Tess; they don't mention Ellie's condition; Ellie does what Joel says going forward. There's a town a few miles north they can head to where Joel can cash in a few favours. One of those, he hopes, is a car as they have a long way to go.

Answer: A car battery

Joel and Ellie will arrive, by foot, in Lincoln, Massachusetts to find that Clickers dot the streets and houses the deeper they head through. There is a sign of life though; much of the High Street is lined with tripwires and blockades. In fact, Joel will step into one harrowing trap before Bill shows up and saves the pair of them, rushing them off to his safehouse.

Bill will be reluctant to help, but agrees that if he finds them the parts to get a car running, they'll be square on favours. And since the whole town is booby-trapped, everyone'll need to stay close. They'll shift over to Bill's further command post in a church cellar, upgrade their arsenal, and beeline for Lincoln High School (encountering a Bloater in the gymnasium) before reaching their destination.

Arriving at Frank's house, they'll find Bill's former partner having commit suicide (to avoid his infection spreading). Fortunately, in spite of the tragedy, they'll find the missing spare battery in a vehicle in the garage. It'll lead the group to get the truck started while pushing it along the suburban streets outside. Naturally, it's the perfect scenario for a chase. While Ellie drives, Joel and Bill will get it going and hop in the back to avoid getting mauled.

At the edge of town, Bill will ask to get out and he'll hand off a siphon-- they'll need it for gas. At this point, they're square on favours. With that, Joel and Ellie will head off toward Pennsylvania.

Answer: The bridge

Pittsburgh is not in good shape when Joel and Ellie arrive, and though they start to pass through the narrow path through the city streets in their vehicle, they're intercepted by a Hunter ambush and forced to fight for their lives before proceeding on foot, first through the Pittsburgh Military Zone, then through some of the city's landmarks, en route to one of the remaining bridges. The route passes through a former bookstore and military waypoint before going into the Hotel Grand where a broken elevator will send Joel plunging into the Clicker-infested basement. After resurfacing, Ellie will, in turn, save Joel's life.

Making their way through waves of Hunters on their guard, the pair will head into the Financial District and come across two surviving brothers, Sam and Henry, who will be ready to make a break to the radio tower outside of the city that night, using the cover of darkness to slip through the Hunters' checkpoints unseen. The brothers are out to rendezvous with the Fireflies, and they know they're set to meet with other survivors at that point. Joel and Ellie tag along as much as they can but are, naturally, split off from the two. They only manage to escape the Hunters and their mobile turret by jumping into the Allegheny River, even though Ellie can't swim.

Answer: Sam

Joel and Ellie wash up on the shore downriver with Sam and Henry watching over them, and though there's a bit of animosity, everyone realizes they have to make the rendezvous at the radio tower, and that means passing through the sewer system nearby. What follows is a lengthy trip through the infected-infested tunnels that lead to Waverly Township's suburbs.

The foursome isn't out of the clear on the other end of this though-- heading through the streets they'll get caught out by Hunters, including one in a sniper nest at the end of a long road. Joel will infiltrate solo and assist the others in evading the group (and their turret vehicle from Pittsburgh), but the resulting firefight will draw in the Clickers. They'll narrowly escape.

That evening, the four will count their blessings they survived this far though Joel and Henry will both agree that they might be the only ones to make it to the rendezvous spot. It turns out to be a false assumption. The next morning, while the others wake up, Ellie checks on Sam to discover that he's been infected, having been bit on the leg during the last escape. Henry will fire the killing blow on his brother and turn the gun on himself, ending the short-lived partnership.

Answer: A horse

By fall, Joel and Ellie, alone, make it to a hydroelectric dam in Jackson County. They have a few miles to go to get to Tommy's group in Jackson and plan to head into the seemingly-unused plant on the river, but Tommy and his people find them there, at the gate and let them in. As it seems, they've been trying to get the plant running again, the turbine having stopped.

In private, Tommy will indicate that after their split, he went back to Texas at some point, finding most of their stuff was long-salvaged. While it's nice to reunite, the talk turns to business. Joel explains that Ellie is immune and he needs to get her to the Fireflies, but he wants to pass her off to Tommy, let him claim the reward, and have someone else fight for the cause; he's done enough. Tommy won't do it though. He has a family now, and the risk is too high.

After Hunters attack the dam, Tommy and Maria talk candidly about the situation and it appears that neither of them is particularly into the idea of following through on Joel's ask. Ellie, overhearing this, steals a horse and rides off, leaving Joel and Tommy with no choice but to pursue her out to the nearby ranch, the Hidden Pines Corral, where a group of bandits swoop in to make themselves nuisances.

Joel will chastise Ellie for fleeing, but she's equally disappointed with him for trying to hand her off. She crosses a line in saying that she's not like Sarah, clearly striking a nerve in bringing up Joel's daughter, but by the time they leave the ranch, it appears that Joel has made up his mind to take her onward to the Fireflies himself. Tommy drops them both off at the nearby encampment before departing.

Answer: Joel

Joel and Ellie will proceed to the campus of the University of Eastern Colorado on Tommy's recommendation and the two will need to navigate their way to a building that looks like a giant mirror. It's not too difficult a route to pass through; even though there are infected beings found in some of the dormitories along the way, once they can turn on some of the generators to open their path, they should be able to ride right up to the militia camp and into the science building.

The problem, they quickly find, is that all of the Fireflies appear to have vacated the premises. Not only is there evidence that the scientists never really found a solution for the situation there, but all of them-- at least the survivors-- moved onward to St. Mary's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Discovering this info will lead Joel and Ellie to find themselves surrounded by Hunters, and this fight will end with the pair escaping on horseback, but not before Joel plunges over a balcony and onto a steel rod, resulting in a devastating injury. Ellie will have no choice but to drag him along, back to the horse, after pulling him free of the metal stake. He'll barely make it, passing out when they reach a safe-enough distance.

Answer: A cannibal

When winter hits, Ellie and Joel are positioned in an old, vacant, lakeside resort. Joel, still struggling to recover from his injuries, remains in the basement of a lodge while Ellie hunts alone across a snowy landscape. It's during one such hunt that she encounters David, a member of a larger group stationed nearby, also looking for food. She holds David at gunpoint while they barter over a deer she felled; she wants antibiotics, and he can have the whole deer.

While Ellie and David are beset upon by Clickers, she does eventually get the penicillin from him, bringing it back and administering it to Joel, but in doing so she inadvertently brings David's community out of hiding. The next morning, she's awakened by his trackers who, while she tries to flee, shoots her horse and forces her to attempt escape on foot. She's chased through the resort and grabbed before she can make it away.

Ellie will wake up in a cell to find that David and his men, looking for more meat to sustain themselves during the winter, are in fact cannibals, intending to make her into their next meal. When she manages to reveal that she's infected, it gives her the perfect opportunity to lash out, flee into the town on foot, and attempt escape. All of this will lead to a confrontation against David in a nearby restaurant wherein she'll manage to get the upper hand and brutally take down her captor while the building burns down around her.

Joel, waking up during these events, will find her there (after fighting through the Hunters) and pull her free of the chaos once she's achieved her freedom.

Answer: The tunnels of Salt Lake City

When spring arrives, Joel and Ellie proceed, on foot, to Salt Lake City, bound for their new final destination at St. Mary's Hospital. Heading down the highway, the two pass through a bus depot to find perhaps one of their last calming moments on their journey; climbing through the building they find a herd of giraffes passing through the city nearby. After this encounter, Joel reminds Ellie that she doesn't need to go through with meeting these scientists; the offer is open to head back to Tommy's. Ellie, however, believes that this all can't be for nothing.

Passing the empty FEDRA tents outside, the two proceed into the East Tunnel for their final infected encounters of the trip. It's after these that they'll have to pass through a corridor of rapidly-rushing water, and crossing the makeshift paths here, Joel will accidentally tumble into a bus acting as a blockade. Ellie, fearing he can't get out, will put herself at risk to try and save him despite her inability to swim and, once the bus dislodges, the two will tumble into the rushing current. Joel will find Ellie and attempt to perform CPR on her, but that's when the Fireflies will locate them, knock Joel out, and bring them in.

Answer: True

Joel awakens to encounter Marlene who, after all this time, managed to make it back to her people in Salt Lake City despite losing many of them heading out from Boston. She acknowledges that it's fate that brought them all there together; that he and Ellie managed to make it means it was meant to be.

The real problem is that Marlene won't let Joel see Ellie since she's being prepped for surgery. The doctors, as it turns out, are eager to get her under the knife, but as they indicate, the Cordyceps inside of her has mutated, allowing for her immunity, and the only way to possibly reverse-engineer a vaccine is by removing the part of her brain that has survived the infection. Marlene notes that there is no other choice before placing him under guard and departing.

Joel, refusing to let Ellie be killed, subdues the guards and commits to finding the operating room, killing as many Fireflies as he can along the way. He'll execute the guards and Ellie's surgeons in the pediatrics ward before carrying her out, taking the elevator down to P2. Marlene will be the last one in his way and, while she aims a gun at him, she'll beg him to do the right thing by allowing her doctors to save the world.

Answer: Jackson

Ellie will awaken in the back seat of a car while Joel drives her out of Salt Lake City. He'll indicate that they found the Fireflies, but as it turns out, there are more people like her-- immune-- so they've already done their research and stopped looking for a cure. He lies, of course, but says he'll take them home.

The truth is that he killed Marlene. Though she begged that he let her go, he believed wholly that she'd come after Ellie if they managed to escape.

Months later, Joel and Ellie will crest a ridge in Wyoming and come upon Jackson. Joel will open up to Ellie, saying that if she'd ever met Sarah, he thinks they would've been friends. It gives Ellie the opportunity to talk about when she was bit, back in Boston, and her best friend, Riley got bit and turned at the same time. She admits she's still waiting for an inevitability.

No matter what, Joel says, Ellie needs to feel that she has something to fight for. It prompts her to ask for the truth, asking him to reaffirm that everything he said about the Fireflies-- their plans, their research-- was true. He swears that it is. She says okay.