‘The Last of Us’ Season 2: All the Biggest Changes From the Game

When it premiered in 2023, HBO’s The Last of Us was hailed by many as the best video game adaptation ever. A huge part of that acclaim was attributed to how closely series’ creators Craig Mazin and Neill Druckmann (who co-created the game) stuck to the script when translating the 2013 title to television.

For anyone who’d played the game, it seemed obvious; The Last of Us was designed to closely resemble the language of cinematic storytelling. The first season lifted the entire structure of the game — with 1:1 recreation of many scenes and lines of dialogue to the point where fans could practically speak alongside the characters precognitively.

But fans also knew that by the show’s second season, a near-perfect adaptation would be much more difficult. 2020’s The Last of Us Part II was a different beast than its predecessor, with a more sprawling story told from different perspectives — and its own tectonic narrative shifts from the first entry that stirred controversy among audiences.

While its creators have been open about how the story of The Last of Us (the show) will need to evolve to fit the medium of TV, it hasn’t stopped those in-the-know from counting off and decrying some of the biggest alterations to the game’s plot. And while it remains to be seen just how far the trajectory of the narrative will depart from the source material as the series progresses, stretching the game out over multiple seasons, it’s clear from Season Two that even minor updates could have an enormous impact on how television audiences will experience the story of Joel, Ellie, and Abby.

Without getting caught up on minutiae, some of the differing choices are apparent while others are more subtle. Here are all the biggest changes we’ve caught in The Last of Us Season Two from the games.

[Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season Two, episodes one to four.]

“I saved her.”

The season premiere opens with a look back on the final moments of the show’s Season One finale, wherein Ellie confronts Joel about the events that took place in Salt Lake City. Joel lies about Ellie’s procedure that might’ve saved humanity from the cordyceps infection and omits the whole bit about slaughtering almost every Firefly in the hospital. It’s ambiguous as to whether Ellie believes him — but the shadow of doubt looms.

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In the game, the introduction is framed as a conversation between Joel (Pedro Pascal in the show, Troy Baker in game) and his brother Tommy (Diego Luna in the show, Jeffrey Pierce in game). With somber flashbacks to the violent night, the scene plays out more grimly than in the show, reminding players that even if they agreed with Joel’s actions, he has innocent blood on his hands. When questioned by Tommy about what he really did, Joel replies, “I saved her.” This line does end up in the series but is relayed later by Tommy when speaking to someone else. It’s a small detail, but cutting the interaction gives Joel a lot less screen time early in the show, which focuses more on the people affected by his decisions than his internal struggle about them.

An early introduction to Abby and friends

With the pivot away from Joel in the episode’s opener comes a much earlier introduction to Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her surviving Firefly cohorts in the immediate aftermath of the bloodbath in Salt Lake City. In a makeshift graveyard outside the hospital, surrounded by the giraffes that Ellie met in one of the first season’s most emotional scenes, the group discuss their next moves after burying their dead. Their mission is clear: kill Joel, after finding another outfit to regroup and rebuild with.

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In the game, Abby arrives in the story further down the line as a seemingly innocuous figure during a raid by the infected horde. Her motivations and allegiances remain a mystery until much later, making her serve as a more bogeyman-like threat. Here, she bears more humanity up front, and is intended to be empathized with as a victim of Joel rather than shrouded in the otherness of being the antagonist.

Cordyceps threats take root

One of the biggest changes established in season one was in how the fungal cordyceps spread and wreak havoc throughout the world. Rather than infecting people through airborne spores (necessitating gas masks during encounters), the fungus grows underground, stretching out a nervous system-like web of roots that help it find human colonies for prey.

In Jackson, the town where Joel and Ellie have found refuge with Tommy, an initiative to expand the community unearths a serious issue with water pipelines that are filled with the fungal tendrils (although the threat they pose is played down as a curiosity for those who may not recall their impact in the previous season). All of this is new to the story, and sets up a ticking clock toward a major incursion in Jackson that’s never in any real danger during the events of the game.

Joel and Dina are pals

Early in the premiere, Ellie’s friend and potential love interest Dina (Isabella Merced in the show, Shannon Woodard in the game) stops by to pay Joel a visit, discussing the town’s various renovations and the off-kilter behavior of Ellie. It’s quickly established that Joel has taken a liking to Dina and sees in her a healthier father-daughter relationship than he currently has with Ellie, who’s become more distant.

Their relationship is less defined in the game, with Dina seen more through Ellie’s perspective. The deeper ties established here play into additionally added character interactions and sequences that veer away from the game in later episodes, but it also reinforces the strain between Joel and Ellie, even as we see them interact less in the series than they did in the game.

Gail the therapist

One of the strongest aspects of the first season of The Last of Us was the expansion of characters like Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), who go from footnotes in the journey to fully fleshed out people in one of the best episodes of television ever. Season Two does much of this, too, but also adds new characters like Catherine O’Hara’s Gail, who was originally meant to appear in the game but was ultimately cut.

Gail is the town therapist, and although she’s clearly damaged and finding solace in heavy drinking, her role is to help assuage much of the trauma the survivors face daily. Specifically, she is working through Joel’s issues with Ellie — and the secrets Joel himself is withholding, even though Gail hates Joel for killing her infected husband just a year earlier. Gail’s session with Joel has shades of other conversations he has with Tommy in-game, and again reinforces the unstable nature of Joel, who is coming apart at the seams as his relationship with Ellie flounders in the face of his actions.

No “Future Days” or porch reunion

One of the biggest alterations to an important scene from the game comes at the end of the premiere, where Ellie comes across Joel sitting on his porch after making a mess at the town’s party by punching Seth for his homophobic comments. Having already told Joel off in front of everyone, Ellie pauses for a moment to look at her would-be father before silently passing by.

This is one of the most shocking pivots from the game, which at this point in the narrative had spent more time letting players breath in the short-lived family dynamic of the pair. In-game, this sequence is actually the penultimate scene toward the very end, a flashback diving into the last conversation Joel and Ellie ever had that recontextualizes much of their relationship. In the space where the porch scene exists in the series, there’s instead a different flashback where Joel fulfills his promise to teach Ellie how to play guitar, performing an acoustic rendition of Pearl Jam’s “Future Days.” The omission of the song makes sense given that “Future Days” released in 2013, the year the apocalypse happens, which is changed to 2003 in the series, meaning that the song was never written in this reality.

Abby’s physicality and relationship with Owen

From the initial casting announcement of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, many fans were quick to point out that the actress lacked the bodybuilder-like physique of the in-game character (voiced by Laura Bailey, modeled after Jocelyn Mettler). Although the show’s creators have argued that the bulky musculature isn’t essential to the character, it serves a different purpose in-game, where at the portion the story that makes up episode two, players take on control of the character to see that she plays very much like Joel did in the first game — a powerhouse in contrast to Ellie’s more stealthy gameplay.

While Abby’s lack of raw strength makes her more vulnerable to danger in the show, there’s also cutbacks to her emotional vulnerability with characters like Owen (Spencer Lord in the show, Patrick Fugit in game). In the game, an early conversation overlooking Jackson reveals that Abby and Owen were once romantically involved, but that he’s now with another party member named Mel. He tries to convince Abby that the threat is too great, and that they should turn back. In the series, the details of their love triangle are pulled, and Owen instead rallies the group to abandon the mission behind Abby’s back.

Different patrol pairings

Outside of reshuffling individual scenes, this is a point at which deliberate choices to which characters are present for specific sequences may truly impact the plot of The Last of Us moving forward. In the game, it’s established that brothers Joel and Tommy always take their lookout patrols together, but with a massive snowstorm looming over Jackson, the show opts to keep Tommy planted in-town, while Dina instead accompanies Joel for their ill-fated meeting with Abby. In a parallel subplot, Dina’s ex-boyfriend Jesse (Young Mazino in the show; Stephen Chang in game) replaces Dina as Ellie’s patrol partner.

The effects of this are twofold: It means that Ellie and Dina’s will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic is pushed further down the line as a major interaction between the potential paramours doesn’t occur here; secondly, it places Tommy in Jackson for a life-threatening action sequence that teases his death (but spares him), rather than being in the room when Abby ultimate executes his brother.

Jackson in ruins

By far the biggest addition thus far to the series is a large-scale action sequence in Jackson that pays off on the tease of the cordyceps network previously introduced beneath the town. Invaded by a sprawling horde of infected, including a giant bloater that almost kills Tommy, Jackson is left almost entirely in ruins. The events of the raid occur simultaneously with Joel and Dina’s arrival at the resort where Abby’s group waits in hiding.

In the game, Joel and Tommy find Abby surrounded by infected (as she is in the show), but the stakes are somewhat lower, and Joel’s intentions are more altruistic — wanting to save Abby and bring her in from the storm rather than racing to find armed allies to help quell the assault on his home. For Joel, the endpoint is ultimately the same, but now his death is coupled with countless more in Jackson.

A less brutal death for Joel

For gamers, Joel’s death has been a well-guarded secret in the lead-up to the series’ second season. Players knew it was coming, but it doesn’t make the sucker punch any less painful. But there is some softening of the edges — whether to make Abby feels slightly less savage or simply avoid comparisons to another shocking death in a similar show (The Walking Dead) — Abby’s execution of Joel isn’t quite as gratuitously violent.

In the show, Abby does use a golf club to beat Joel to the brink of death, and the squelching of her fists against his face is skin crawling. But after Owen begs her to put an end to it, Abby chooses to stab Joel in the neck with the sharpened edge of the broken driver. While still unsettling, the scene plays more as Abby providing a small mercy to Joel with silent blow, whereas in the game she continues to cave in his skull with the club as a restrained Ellie holds eye contact. It might sound like a nitpick to those who’d prefer a less bloodthirsty approach, but it does change the framing of the scene thematically.

A three-month recovery period

Episode three opens with the aftermath of Joel’s death, seeing Tommy tend to his body and Ellie suffering from PTSD as she recovers from both the severe physical and psychological trauma she endured on the night of. The show jumps ahead three months to show both the town of Jackson and Ellie herself at an uneasy stabilization point. In her sessions with Gail, Ellie is pretending to be fine despite the therapist’s inclinations otherwise.

All of this is newly provided context added for the show that informs how the people of Jackson chose to respond to both Joel’s death and the horde attack (which also isn’t in the original story). In the game, a decision to pursue Abby is made just days after Joel’s burial, providing immediate action and consequences to players who want to get revenge themselves. It also changes who from Jackson wants to take said action given the different circumstances the characters find themselves in from the show.

The introduction of Seraphites

Midway through episode three, the plot shifts briefly away from Jackson to a group of facially scarred travelers (who we’ll later know as the Seraphites). Less equipped with technology and weaponry than the other factions like the Washington Liberation Front and FEDRA, the Scars (as they’re nicknamed) resemble a more hunter-gatherer culture, and wax poetic about the benevolent prophet of their cult. They’re subsequently ambushed and slaughtered by unknown attackers, with even the women and children ruthlessly killed.

This differs extensively from the game, where the Scars debut later in Ellie’s trek through Seattle as a terrifying force depicted more facelessly and savage. Here, Ellie and Dina discover their corpses and assume the violence was the work of Abby’s group (the WLF), reinforcing their perception of the organization as killers to be stopped. In the game, the Scars play a crucial role in Abby’s personal story, but at this juncture of the series, they’re just another sea of victims.

The town hall and a mission denied

Stemming from the major changes made with episode two’s destruction of Jackson, episode three sees a town hall meeting held for the community to debate whether they should send a hunting party out to get revenge on Abby. While Tommy himself wants blood, he’s more concerned about protecting both the town and Ellie, the latter he knows will absolutely try to go it alone to get payback. Despite an impassioned plea from Seth and a relatively well-reasoned one by Ellie, the council votes against sacrificing resources for a suicide mission. In response, Ellie and Dina decide to sneak out themselves, minimizing the impact on the community with a smaller mission.

This is a stark contrast to the game, where Tommy himself decides to take on the burden of vengeance, sneaking out to murder Joel’s killers (as he believes Joel would’ve for him). Unlike the show, it’s Tommy’s wife Maria (Rutina Wesley in the show, Ashley Scott in game) who sends Ellie and Dina out, not to kill anyone, but to bring her husband home safely. The show’s divergence here is enormous, first by grounding Tommy in Jackson rather than as the leader of the violent excursion and secondly removing any guise about Ellie’s intentions. Rather than using the salvation of Tommy as an excuse to inadvertently kill those who wronged her, Ellie’s bloodlust is on full display to Dina.

Redemption for Seth

A smaller repercussion of the changing dynamics and character pairings provides the town bartender, Seth, with a moment of redemption for his past behavior. In episode one, Seth spews homophobic rhetoric and slurs at Ellie and Dina during their dance, leading the Joel’s intervention and subsequent shunning from his adoptive daughter. In the show, Seth provides the same weak apology he’s coaxed into from the game, but he also stands up to support Ellie during the council meeting (although he makes it more about projecting strength than making amends).

His final act of penance is being the one to equip Ellie and Dina with weapons and supplies for their venture and helping them sneak out in the night — the role played by Maria in the game, sending the duo off to rescue her husband.

More love games for Ellie and Dina

The show’s framing of Dina is overall very different, giving her much deeper tactical knowledge and street smarts than the more impulsive Ellie. In many ways, she’s the one leading the charge as the brain behind the operation. She also leads their blossoming relationship, luring Ellie into opening about their kiss in the premiere, although stopping short of acting on their chemistry. She also reveals that within the three-month gap added to the series, she’s gotten back together with Jesse (once again).

At this point in the original plot, Ellie and Dina have already slept together and are depicted as essentially being a couple. Ellie remains strongheaded as always, but in the game there’s a more tragic love story at play as she is pulling along a less willing and capable participant under the false pretense of saving one of their own. Here, Ellie is more reserved, while Dina has more agency and control.

The arrival of Isaac

Episode four picks up with a flashback to 2018 (15 years into the apocalypse), where a platoon of FEDRA soldiers is riding in an APC. Their leader is shown to be Isaac (Jeffrey Wright in both the game and show), a world-weary veteran who ultimately turns on the group, killing all but one solder before aligning with the WLF (who get nicknamed as Wolves in the episode).

In the present, Isaac is the leader of the Wolves and is waging a personal war on the Scars to eradicate the rival faction. In a later scene, he can be seen interrogating and executing a Scar at WLF’s home base. This is all in line with the game but comes into play much sooner than before — where Isaac’s role is mostly confined to Abby’s subplot that we’ll likely see in future seasons of the show.

Speeding through day one

While the first game was neatly broken into four parts based on the seasons of the year, The Last of Us Part II has a much more complex structure. Episodes one to three of the show mostly make up the prologue before things would’ve kicked into gear in the game. By episode four, Ellie and Dina are in Seattle for the first of three days that round out this section of the story. But playing the game, each day is an arduous journey in their own right; conversely the show speeds through day one in a single episode.

Ellie and Dina make their way through Seattle, pausing for just one pitstop at a record store, before targeting a defunct TV station occupied by the Wolves. By removing Tommy from the equation, the duo isn’t finding corpses left behind by Joel’s brother to chart their next path — skipping over sequences where Abby’s friends begin dying off. As of now, they’ve been pulled completely from the plot and could potentially all be alive and well.

Ellie’s gets bitten

After fleeing the TV station and killing two Wolves in a remixed turn of events, Ellie and Dina find themselves in a subway tunnel besieged by both WLF and infected. It’s a harrowing sequence lifted directly from the game, but the scene’s ending changes to match the internal logic of the show’s reality. Near their escape, Ellie throws herself in front of Dina, taking a bite from an infected person to save her friend. In this world, that’s a death sentence for anyone but Ellie.

The scene plays out slightly differently in the game, wherein airborne spores force everyone to wear gasmasks — including Ellie, to hide her immunity. In this version, they’re also attacked but her mask is smashed, revealing the truth to Dina as Ellie manages to survive the fatal inhalant. In the show, the bite leads to an all-night standoff where Dina must hold a gun to Ellie’s head until she sees that there’s no transformation.

Ellie and Dina consummate their relationship

Unlike the game, where Ellie and Dina hook up early on, the show takes some time teasing out their potential pairing. Following Ellie’s bite, an awestruck Dina finally makes a move after the emotional whiplash of realizing that she hadn’t lost her newfound love. It’s here that Dina also reveals that she’s pregnant with Jesse’s baby, with Ellie proudly proclaiming that she’ll be the dad in their triple parenting situation.

Obviously, this sex scene occurs much sooner in the game, but it’s also the impact of the pregnancy reveal that’s changed. In the source material, Dina’s pregnancy is used as an excuse to leave her behind in the theatre, pitting players as Ellie alone, who can set aside any pretenses of the journey being anything more than a revenge mission without her partner’s safety to worry about.

The Wolves go to war

Similarly to the game, the episode ends with a massive explosion rattling downtown Seattle. Using a stolen walkie lifted from the TV station, Ellie and Dina can suss out that it’s the Wolves who are making a move on some other entity, and the pair quickly plan to make their move in the middle of the chaos to find their marks.

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Although it’s unclear exactly who the Wolves are raining fire upon in both versions of the story, it’s presumed to be the Scars in the adaptation; whereas in the game, Ellie and Dina believe that Tommy is responsible for the carnage. If it turns out to be Wolves attacking Seraphites, it will shift up the timeline of the game where the Wolves have escalated their attempts to eradicate the group that plays heavily into later portions of the story. For now, the identity of who’s involved remains a mystery.

This story will be updated weekly as new episodes of The Last of Us air.