Five years after Ellie and Joel found a weird, violent peace in Jackson, everything breaks. It doesn't just break; it shatters in a way that left players staring at their screens in literal silence for ten minutes. If you’re looking into The Last of Us 2 plot, you probably know it’s not a fun story. It’s a misery simulator. It’s a game about how being "the hero" is mostly a matter of perspective, and how revenge is a circular firing squad.
Honestly, the game starts with a lie. Joel tells Tommy what happened at the hospital in Salt Lake City. He saved Ellie. He also slaughtered the Fireflies and killed the only doctor who could make a vaccine. He doesn't regret it. But that choice creates a ripple effect that eventually catches up to him in the form of a golf club.
The Catalyst: Why Everything Went Wrong in Jackson
The inciting incident isn't just a plot point. It’s a cultural earthquake. We meet Abby Anderson. She’s focused, physically imposing, and clearly hunting someone. When she finally finds Joel, she doesn't just kill him. She tortures him while Ellie is forced to watch, pinned to the floor. It is brutal. It’s meant to make you hate Abby with every fiber of your being.
This sets the stage for a classic revenge tale. Or so we thought. Ellie, consumed by a rage that feels entirely justified to the player, heads to Seattle. She wants blood. She wants Abby. Along with her girlfriend Dina, Ellie treks through a rain-soaked, crumbling city caught in a three-way war between the WLF (Washington Liberation Front), a religious cult called the Seraphites (Scars), and the infected.
The structure here is intentional. You spend three days as Ellie. You hunt down Abby’s friends—Nora, Owen, Mel. You kill them one by one. By the time Ellie reaches a climax at a Seattle aquarium, she’s losing her soul. She finds out Mel was pregnant after killing her. The trauma is stacking up, and the game is leaning into the cost of this "justice."
The Mid-Point Twist That Changed Gaming
Then, the perspective shifts. Just when you think you’re about to have the final showdown as Ellie, the game forces you to play as Abby for the same three days.
This is the most controversial part of The Last of Us 2 plot. Naughty Dog forces you to walk in the shoes of the person you’ve spent ten hours hating. You see her side. You find out that the doctor Joel killed at the end of the first game? That was Abby’s father, Jerry Anderson. He wasn't just a generic NPC; he was a guy who saved zebras and loved his daughter.
Abby’s story is a mirror. While Ellie is descending into darkness, Abby is actually trying to find redemption. She meets Yara and Lev, two runaway Seraphites. Through them, she starts to care about something other than her own trauma. It’s a jarring transition. One minute you're trying to kill this woman, the next you're helping her fight a terrifying "Rat King" monster in the basement of a hospital to get medical supplies for a kid.
- The WLF (Wolves): A paramilitary group that took over Seattle from FEDRA.
- The Seraphites (Scars): A primitive, ritualistic group following a dead prophet.
- The Conflict: These two groups are in an all-out war for the city, and Abby is caught in the middle of their final, fiery battle on an island.
The Final Confrontation and the Santa Barbara Detour
By the time the two timelines converge at the theater, the player is exhausted. Abby wins the fight but lets Ellie live, largely because Lev tells her to stop. She leaves. She chooses peace.
But Ellie can’t.
Months later, Ellie is living on a farm with Dina and a baby named JJ. She has everything she ever wanted. But she has PTSD. She sees Joel’s bloody face every time she closes her eyes. When Tommy shows up with a lead on Abby’s location in Santa Barbara, Ellie leaves her family behind. It’s heartbreaking. She chooses the hunt over the healing.
In Santa Barbara, the tone shifts again. The environment is sunny, bleached, and horrific. A group called the Rattlers is keeping slaves. Abby has been captured, tortured, and left to die on a pillar by the beach. When Ellie finally finds her, Abby is a ghost of herself. She’s emaciated. She doesn't even want to fight.
Ellie forces the confrontation anyway. They fight in the shallow water, two broken people losing fingers and teeth. And then, at the very last second, as Ellie is drowning Abby, she has a flash of Joel. Not the bloody Joel from the floor of the basement, but Joel playing the guitar.
She lets go.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Ending
The biggest misconception about The Last of Us 2 plot is that Ellie "failed" because she didn't kill Abby. In reality, sparing Abby was the only way Ellie could save what was left of herself. If she had finished the job, she would have been truly lost.
When Ellie returns to the farm, it’s empty. Dina is gone. Ellie tries to play the guitar Joel gave her, but she can't—she lost two fingers in the fight with Abby. She can't even hold onto the last physical connection she had to her father figure. She leaves the guitar behind and walks away into the woods.
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It’s a bleak ending, but it’s also a fresh start. By leaving the guitar, she’s finally leaving the grief behind.
Key Takeaways for Understanding the Story:
- Perspective is Everything: The game is designed to show that "villains" are just the protagonists of their own stories.
- The Cost of Violence: Every death has a consequence. The game tracks the names of NPCs you kill to remind you they had lives.
- Cyclical Grief: Joel’s lie led to his death; Abby’s revenge led to her friends' deaths; Ellie’s revenge led to her losing her family.
- The Guitar as a Symbol: It represents the burden of Joel’s memory. Leaving it signifies moving on.
If you are looking to dive deeper into the lore, focus on the optional notes found throughout Seattle. They detail the fall of the WLF and the origin of the Seraphite prophet, providing a massive amount of world-building that the main cutscenes miss. To truly grasp the weight of the ending, go back and re-watch the "Porch Scene" flashback—it recontextualizes every action Ellie takes throughout the entire game.