7 of the most heartbreaking moments in The Last of Us

the last of us saddest moments ellie winter

Of all the sad moments in video games we’ve wept our way through, the original The Last of Us is probably responsible for most of them. We got extremely attached to curmudgeonly dad-substitute Joel and potty-mouthed limelight-stealing sidekick Ellie, and with both characters set to make a return in the sequel, we’ve been dying to find out where fate took them next. So with The Last of Us Part II just around the corner (it’s out on 19 June, by the way, and if you’re yet to grab your copy, make sure to check out what comes with each edition and the gorgeous themed PS4 Pro first), we decided it was time to take a look back at the story and weep a little more over the saddest bits from the original.

Return to a post-apocalyptic America overrun by deadly Infected in The Last of Us Part II

Shop The Last of Us Part II here

And we’ll give you fair warning: there are major story spoilers for the original The Last of Us up ahead. No spoilers for the sequel though. You’re all good.

1. Sarah deserved better

Sarah is a total sweetheart, and she did not deserve to die before the first half hour was up. We’ll never forgive that soldier for opening fire on Joel and Sarah, never never not ever.

2. Tess, nooo

We got very attached to wisecracking Tess. Without her, Joel would have grumped off home at the first opportunity and abandoned Ellie, and that would’ve been terrible. Also, she doesn’t stand for his nonsense. Well, didn’t stand for his nonsense. Dammit, Tess.

3. Sam and Henry, gosh darn it

the last of us saddest moments henry and sam

Why do all our favourite video game characters end up in bad situations? We were thrilled when we first met Sam and Henry, thinking that at last we had a knot of nice people all together and protecting each other, and then we lost not one but two brothers in the space of about five minutes.

4. Ellie and Joel

the last of us saddest moments ellie joel

We get that Joel was just trying to protect Ellie by planning to leave her with Tommy, but we can’t exactly blame Ellie for taking it as a sign that Joel just wanted to get shot of her. Everyone always leaves the poor girl behind. We might’ve shouted at the screen a bit when Joel first suggested it.

5. That bit with the giraffes

After everything they’ve been through, Joel offers Ellie a way out and a safe, stable home with him and Tommy. We desperately wanted her to take him up on it, because we had a nasty feeling something was going to go wrong after this. Also, giraffes!

6. That ending

the last of us saddest moments hospital rescue ending

They want to do WHAT to Ellie’s brain?! Alright, so in this massive twist Joel technically condemned the world to death by cordyceps fungus by kidnapping its only chance of a cure, but could he really have done anything else? We support you all the way, Joel. Uneasily, but we support you. Maybe.

Bonus: Goodbye, Riley

the last of us saddest moments riley left behind dlc

One of the most adorable video game romances we’ve seen both begins and ends in the Left Behind DLC. We loved clever Riley and her relationship with Ellie, and while we knew it couldn’t end well (no Riley in the main game, after all), we still had our fingers crossed that the ending wouldn’t break us into tiny pieces. Silly us.

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