You spent twenty hours hunting her. You watched her kill a beloved icon with a golf club while his surrogate daughter screamed on the floor. By the time you reach that foggy, salt-stained beach in Santa Barbara, your hands are probably shaking just as much as Ellie’s are. The big question—does Abby die in The Last of Us—is the only thing driving the final act of the game.
She doesn't.
That’s the short answer, but the "why" and "how" are what make people still argue about this game years after its release. Naughty Dog didn't just give us a boss fight; they gave us a Rorschach test. If you were looking for a traditional revenge story where the villain gets tossed off a cliff, you didn't get it. Instead, you got a messy, exhausting, and deeply polarizing look at what happens when two people lose everything and realize that one more death won't bring any of it back.
The Beach: Where the cycle almost ended for good
When Ellie finally tracks Abby down at the Pillars, the woman she finds isn't the powerhouse soldier from Seattle. She’s a husk. Months of torture and starvation at the hands of the Rattlers have stripped away the muscle mass that defined her character. She’s weak, her hair is gone, and she’s barely clinging to life. Honestly, she’s unrecognizable.
Ellie forces a fight. She has to. She’s traveled thousands of miles, left a domestic life with Dina and a baby, and lost two fingers just to get to this moment. The fight is brutal, but it isn’t "cool." It’s pathetic. Two dying women rolling around in the surf, losing blood and teeth.
At the climax, Ellie has Abby underwater. This is the moment where the question of does Abby die in The Last of Us is answered in real-time. Ellie is winning. She has her hands around Abby's throat. But then, a flash of Joel appears. Not the bloody, mangled Joel from the prologue, but Joel at his farmhouse, playing his guitar in the sun.
Ellie lets go.
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She sits back in the waves, sobbing, and tells Abby to "just take him." "Him" being Lev, the young boy Abby has spent the latter half of the game protecting. It is a moment of pure, agonizing exhaustion. Ellie realizes that killing Abby won't fix her PTSD. It won't bring Joel back. It won't even make her feel better. It would just be one more body in a sea of them.
Why Naughty Dog chose life over death
There’s a lot of debate about whether this ending "works." Neil Druckmann and the writing team at Naughty Dog took a massive risk here. In early drafts of the script, Ellie actually did kill Abby. But during development, the team felt that Ellie’s character would be irredeemable if she went through with it.
The game spends half its runtime forcing you to play as Abby. You see her perspective. You see that she killed Joel because Joel killed her father—a surgeon who was trying to save humanity. You see her rescue Lev and Yara. By the time the beach happens, the game has tried its hardest to make you realize that Abby is the hero of her own story, just as Ellie is the hero of hers.
If Abby died, the cycle of violence would just continue. Lev would eventually come for Ellie. Or Ellie would return to Jackson with even more weight on her soul. By letting her live, Ellie finally breaks the loop. It’s the first time in the entire series someone chooses mercy over retribution.
The aftermath: Where do Abby and Lev go?
So, if she lives, where does she go?
As the credits roll, we see Abby and Lev rowing away into the fog. For a long time, fans speculated about their fate. However, once you finish the game, the main menu screen changes. Instead of the boat in the dark water, you see a boat beached on a bright, sunny shore with a large building in the background.
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That building is the Catalina Island Casino.
This confirms that Abby and Lev actually made it to the Fireflies. Earlier in the game, Abby used a radio to contact a group claiming to be the reformed Fireflies at 2472 via de la Guerra. They told her to head to the large domed building on Catalina Island. The change in the menu screen is a silent, environmental storytelling cue that they reached their destination.
What this means for a potential Part 3
The fact that Abby survives is the biggest "what if" for the future of the franchise. While HBO’s The Last of Us series is bringing this story to a wider audience, gamers are already looking toward a third entry.
- The Fireflies are back: Abby reaching Catalina Island means the Fireflies are a legitimate force again. They have a base. They have organization.
- The Cure remains a factor: If the Fireflies are gathering, their original mission—finding a cure for the Cordyceps brain infection—likely hasn't changed.
- Abby’s new role: She is no longer a soldier for the WLF. She’s a protector. Her relationship with Lev mirrors Joel and Ellie’s, creating a beautiful, if tragic, symmetry.
Addressing the misconceptions
There is a persistent rumor or "Mandela Effect" where some players swear they saw an ending where Abby dies. This usually stems from the "fail state" animations. If you lose the final fight as Ellie, Abby can and will kill you. Likewise, in the theater fight halfway through the game, if you are playing as Abby and fail to stealth around Ellie, Ellie will kill you.
But in the "canon" story, the one that leads to the credits, Abby lives.
There were also leaked plot points before the game launched that suggested Abby was a "boss" you had to defeat to win. While technically true, "defeating" her ended up meaning something much more complex than just depleting a health bar. It meant defeating the urge to kill her.
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Actionable takeaways for players and fans
If you’ve just finished the game and are processing the fact that Abby survived, here is how to dive deeper into the lore and prepare for what comes next:
Analyze the Menu Screen
Go back and look at your title screen after the credits. The shift from the gloomy beach to the sunny shores of Catalina Island is the definitive proof of Abby’s survival and success. It’s the only "happy" ending in the game, relatively speaking.
Watch the "Grounded II" Documentary
For a real look at why the developers chose this path, watch the making-of documentary released by Naughty Dog. They go into detail about the "Ellie kills Abby" draft and why it felt "wrong" for the theme of forgiveness. Seeing the actors, Laura Bailey (Abby) and Ashley Johnson (Ellie), talk about these scenes adds a layer of empathy you might have missed during the stress of gameplay.
Replay the "Museum" Chapter
To understand why Ellie let Abby go, replay the birthday gift flashback. Pay attention to Joel’s face. The game isn't about Abby; it's about Ellie’s relationship with Joel. She lets Abby live because she finally accepts Joel’s death and the fact that he would have wanted her to have a life beyond him.
Track the HBO Series Progress
The second season of the HBO show is covering the events of Part 2. It will be fascinating to see how a TV audience reacts to Abby’s survival. Keep an eye on casting and production notes for Catalina Island locations, as this will hint at how much of Abby's journey to the Fireflies we will actually get to see on screen.
Abby’s survival is the most important narrative choice in the series. It shifts the story from a simple "bad guys vs. good guys" trope into a messy, human exploration of grief. Whether you love her or hate her, Abby’s presence in the world of The Last of Us isn't over.