It’s been years, but people still argue about it. Honestly, few games have ever fractured a fanbase quite like Naughty Dog’s 2020 sequel. If you’re looking to understand what happened in The Last of Us 2, you have to look past the surface-level violence and get into the messy, uncomfortable cycle of grief that drives the whole plot. It isn't just a "zombie story." It’s a game about how a single choice in a hospital hallway years ago basically destroyed the lives of dozens of people.
The story kicks off in Jackson, Wyoming. Everything seems... okay? Joel and Ellie are living there, though their relationship is clearly strained. You can feel the weight of the lie Joel told at the end of the first game—the lie that the Fireflies couldn't make a cure. Then, the inciting incident happens. It’s brutal. It’s quick. A group of strangers led by a woman named Abby tracks Joel down. They don’t just kill him; they torture him to death while Ellie is forced to watch, pinned to the floor. This moment is the catalyst for everything that follows. It's the reason Ellie leaves the safety of Jackson and heads to Seattle on a quest for "justice," which is really just a mask for her own trauma and guilt.
The Three Days in Seattle: Ellie’s Descent
Ellie arrives in Seattle with Dina, her girlfriend, and they’re immediately caught in the middle of a literal war. There are two factions fighting for control of the city: the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), a militarized group that took over from FEDRA, and the Seraphites (Scars), a religious cult that favors bows and arrows over guns. Ellie doesn't care about their politics. She just wants Abby.
Over the course of three days, Ellie becomes something of a monster herself. She interrogates people, she tortures Nora in a basement filled with spores, and she eventually kills Mel and Owen—Abby’s friends. The kicker? Mel was pregnant. When Ellie realizes she killed a pregnant woman, it breaks her. This is a turning point. The game stops being a fun revenge romp and starts feeling like a heavy, suffocating descent into obsession. You’re playing as a character you love, but you’re watching her lose her soul in real-time. It’s exhausting. It’s meant to be.
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The Mid-Point Twist Nobody Expected
Then, the perspective shifts. Just as Ellie and Abby are about to have their final confrontation at the theater, the game rewinds. You’re suddenly playing as Abby. Most players hated this at first. I did too. You’re forced to walk in the shoes of the person who killed Joel. But the game spends the next ten hours humanizing her. You find out why she did it. Abby’s father was the surgeon at the end of the first game—the one Joel killed to save Ellie.
Abby’s three days in Seattle run parallel to Ellie’s. While Ellie is hunting Abby, Abby is trying to find her own redemption by helping two Seraphite outcasts, Yara and Lev. You see the WLF from the inside. You see that Abby isn't a villain in her own story; she's just another survivor who thought killing her enemy would make the nightmares stop. Spoilers: it didn’t. The nightmares only went away when she started helping people again. By the time the two timelines meet back up at the theater, your perspective is supposed to be flipped. You’re not just rooting for Ellie anymore; you’re terrified that one of them is going to kill the other.
The Farm and the Final Confrontation in Santa Barbara
After a brutal fight where Abby nearly kills Ellie but chooses to let her go, we skip ahead. Ellie and Dina are living on a farm with a baby named JJ. It’s peaceful. It’s beautiful. But Ellie has PTSD. She can’t eat, she can’t sleep, and she keeps seeing Joel’s bloodied face every time she closes her eyes. When Tommy shows up with a lead on Abby’s location in Santa Barbara, Ellie chooses to leave her family to finish what she started.
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This is the most controversial part of what happened in The Last of Us 2. Ellie finds Abby, but Abby is a shell of her former self. She’s been captured and tortured by a gang called the Rattlers. She’s emaciated, her hair is gone, and she’s lost all her muscle mass. She doesn't even want to fight. Ellie forces her into a duel in the shallow surf of the beach. It’s pathetic and sad. Ellie loses two fingers in the scuffle. Just as she’s about to drown Abby, she has a flash of Joel—not the bloody Joel, but a memory of him sitting on his porch with a guitar.
She lets her go.
Why the Ending Still Stings
Ellie returns to the farm, but it’s empty. Dina is gone. All of Ellie’s things are packed away except for her guitar. She tries to play the song Joel taught her, but she can’t—she lost the fingers necessary to hold the chords. This is the ultimate cost of her revenge. She lost her connection to Joel (the music) because she couldn't let go of her anger towards his death.
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She leaves the guitar behind and walks away into the woods.
Key Takeaways for Understanding the Narrative
- The Cycle of Violence: Every act of violence in the game has a direct consequence. Joel killed the surgeon, Abby killed Joel, Ellie killed Abby's friends, and in the end, everyone lost something irreplaceable.
- Perspective is Everything: The game forces you to empathize with an antagonist. It challenges the idea of "good guys" and "bad guys" in a post-apocalyptic world.
- Forgiveness vs. Revenge: The ending isn't about Abby deserving mercy; it's about Ellie needing to stop the cycle for her own survival.
If you're planning to revisit the story or play The Last of Us Part II Remastered on PS5, pay close attention to the journal entries. A lot of the emotional heavy lifting happens in Ellie's sketches and poems, which show her gradual loss of self better than any cutscene can. Also, keep an eye on the "No Return" roguelike mode if you want to see how these characters function purely as combatants without the weight of the misery-porn plot hanging over them. It's a great way to appreciate the mechanics without the emotional trauma.
Next Steps for Fans
To fully grasp the nuance of the story, you should look into the "Grounded" documentary released by Naughty Dog, which details the development and the creative decisions behind the polarizing plot. Additionally, comparing the game's events to the foreshadowing in the first game's "Left Behind" DLC provides a lot of context for Ellie's fear of being alone. Understanding the lore requires looking at the small environmental details—the notes left behind in Seattle—as they paint a picture of a world where everyone is a hero in their own tragedy.