Naughty Dog didn't make it easy. Honestly, scavenging for The Last of Us 2 collectibles feels less like a side quest and more like a desperate, gritty archaeological dig through the ruins of Seattle. You’re not just looking for shiny baetes. You’re looking for context. You are hunting for the echoes of people who died decades ago, trapped in Trading Cards and Artifacts that tell stories more haunting than the main plot.
It's a lot. 286 items. That is the number you need to hit if you want that Platinum trophy or if you're just a completionist who hates leaving a stone unturned.
Most players miss the first few items in Jackson because they’re too busy looking at the snow physics. Don't do that. The game starts tracking your progress the moment Ellie wakes up. If you miss that first sketch in her journal, you’re already behind.
The Absolute Chaos of the Seattle Open World
When you hit Downtown Seattle on Day 1, the game suddenly stops being a linear hallway. It opens up. This is where most people get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of The Last of Us 2 collectibles. You have a map. Use it. Ellie will literally mark off locations as you clear them, which is a godsend because this area is packed with missable Trading Cards and those tiny, easy-to-ignore Coins that Abby hunts later.
The music shop? Go there. Not just for the "Take On Me" Easter egg, which is beautiful, but because there’s a key item in the drawer upstairs.
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People always ask if they should use a guide for the 127 Artifacts. Look, if you want to experience the game "purely," go ahead and wander. But Naughty Dog hid some of these things behind breakable glass and inside wall-safes that require you to actually read the environment. You’ll find a note in a coffee shop that mentions a code. That code opens a safe three blocks away. It’s interconnected. It's smart. It’s also incredibly easy to skip if you’re just sprinting to the next combat encounter.
Why Trading Cards are Ellie’s Best Friend
Ellie collects Trading Cards. They’re colorful, they have stats, and they’re a weirdly wholesome hobby for a girl who spends her days dodging Clickers. There are 48 of them. Some are tucked under cars. Others are inside those blue post office boxes you see on the street.
The "Society of Champions" set is basically a giant meta-joke by the developers. Each card represents a hero or villain with a backstory that often mirrors the themes of the game. If you find the "Dr. Uckmann" card, you’ve found a direct nod to the game's director, Neil Druckmann. It’s located in the downtown area, hidden in a place you’d likely only go if you were looking for a fight.
Abby’s Coin Collection: A Different Kind of Hunter
When the perspective shifts to Abby, the collectibles change. She doesn't care about cards. She collects State Quarters. 32 of them.
Why quarters? It’s a link to her father. It’s personal. Finding these is arguably harder than finding Ellie’s cards because they are much smaller. They don't glow as brightly. You’ll find them on top of arcade machines, in the cracks of sidewalks, and behind laundry baskets in the stadium.
The Safes and the Notes You Can't Afford to Miss
Safes are the "big" collectibles. They give you supplements and weapon parts. You need those to survive on Grounded difficulty. If you aren't playing on Grounded, you still want them for the upgrades.
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The trick to safes isn't just finding the box. It's finding the note. Usually, the combination is hidden in a nearby Artifact. Sometimes it's a date on a calendar. Sometimes it's a phone number scribbled on a wall.
- The Big Win: In the "Hillcrest" section, there is a safe in a garage. The code is 30-82-65. You find the hint on a note in the back of a bar.
- The Missable One: The safe in the courthouse. It's easy to walk right past it while looking for gas.
Journal Entries are another layer. These aren't items you pick up; they are prompts. Ellie sees something—a vista, a dead body, a piece of graffiti—and she draws it. There are 20 of these. If you stand in the right spot for too long without pressing the button, you might miss the prompt entirely.
Those Weirdly Specific Workbenches
Technically, workbenches are counted as collectibles in your chapter select. There are 25. You’d think a giant table with a lamp would be hard to miss, but in the dark, rainy environments of Seattle, they blend in.
One of the most famous ones is in a kitchen where a group of Scars—pardon me, Seraphites—ambush you the moment you touch it. It’s a jump scare disguised as a gameplay mechanic. It teaches you that nowhere is safe, not even when you’re trying to upgrade your bow.
The "Strange Relic" and the "Precursor Orb"
Naughty Dog loves their legacy. If you want the "Relic of the Sages" trophy, you have to find the Precursor Orb from Jak and Daxter. It’s in the "Hostile Territory" chapter. Look in the upstairs of the herbalist shop. It’s sitting there, a dusty orange egg that looks totally out of place in a post-apocalyptic world.
Then there’s the Strange Relic. This is the "Strange Pendant" from Uncharted. You find it in the "The Coast" chapter while playing as Abby. It’s inside a safe in the shipping containers. Finding these feels like a secret handshake between the player and the devs.
Strategy for the Completionist Run
If you’re going for 100%, do yourself a favor and turn on the "Enhanced Listen Mode" in the accessibility settings. You can set it to scan for items. It sends out a pulse that highlights collectibles with a distinct ping.
Some people call it cheating. I call it respecting your own time.
The game is long. It's 25 to 30 hours for a first run. If you are backtracking every five minutes because you think you missed a note, you’ll burn out before you even get to the hospital.
- Check your Chapter Select: The main menu tells you exactly how many items you are missing in each sub-chapter.
- Abby’s Day 1 is the heaviest: This section has the most coins and artifacts grouped closely together.
- Don't forget the workbench in the bike shop: It's one of the most commonly missed items in the "The Seraphites" chapter.
Actionable Next Steps for Collectors
If you are sitting there with a 98% completion rate and a sense of mounting frustration, here is how to finish the job. Start a New Game Plus. Your collectibles carry over. You don't have to find everything again; you only have to find what you missed.
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Go into your settings and enable the "Collectible Tracker" icon. This will show a small checkmark next to items you've already picked up in previous playthroughs. It saves you from re-reading the same depressing letters about the fall of society just to see if it's the one you're missing.
Focus on the "Downtown" and "The Seraphites" chapters first. These have the highest density of missable items and the most complex navigation. Once those are cleared, the rest of the game is relatively linear, making the hunt much more manageable. Get back in there and finish Ellie's journal; she's been through enough, she deserves a full book of sketches.