Left Behind
Left Behind is the prequel story bundled with The Last of Us Part I, played entirely as Ellie. It cuts between July 2033 in Boston, when her best friend Riley turns up and takes her to an abandoned mall, and a winter shopping mall in Colorado where Ellie searches for medical supplies for Joel.
- Type
- Storyline
Good to know
- 6 chapters: Back in a Flash, Mallrats, So Close, Fun and Games, The Enemy of My Enemy and Escape from Liberty Gardens.
- Chapters alternate between the Colorado Mountain Plaza near Boulder (present day) and the Liberty Gardens mall in Boston (flashback).
- 14 collectibles, all artifacts: 4, 2, 3, 2 and 3 in the first five chapters, none in the last.
- Finishing it earns the gold trophy Don't Go.
- Four more trophies come from the Boston chapters: Brick Master, Angel Knives, Skillz and Nobody's Perfect.
- It has less combat than the main story, and adds a trick where you set infected and human enemies on each other.
- It first came out as downloadable content on February 14, 2014; Part I includes it from the start.
Chapters in order
1. Back in a Flash (Colorado Mountain Plaza). 2. Mallrats (Liberty Gardens, Boston). 3. So Close (Colorado Mountain Plaza). 4. Fun and Games (Liberty Gardens). 5. The Enemy of My Enemy (Colorado Mountain Plaza). 6. Escape from Liberty Gardens (Liberty Gardens, with a closing scene in Colorado).
The Boston thread
Ellie is a student at the military boarding school inside the Boston zone when Riley, missing for weeks, climbs into her room and reveals she has joined the Fireflies. Riley leads her over the rooftops to Liberty Gardens, a mall they once explored together, and turns the night into an adventure: Halloween masks, a brick-throwing contest, restored power, a carousel, a photo booth, an arcade and a water gun fight. Ellie keeps asking why they are there.
The Colorado thread
In winter, Ellie hides Joel and Callus in a yogurt shop at the Colorado Mountain Plaza, seals the shutter and goes looking for something to treat Joel's wound. The pharmacy is bare, so she heads for a military medical helicopter that crashed through the mall roof, then fights her way back against infected and the survivors who have followed them.
New tactics
Ellie is weaker in close fights than Joel, so the Colorado chapters give you a new option: make noise to steer infected into groups of hostile survivors, then pick off whoever is left or slip past while they fight. The Live Bait trophy rewards luring an infected into a human with a brick or bottle.
How both stories endSpoilerShow
Riley admits the Fireflies are sending her to another city the next day. When Ellie begs her not to go, Riley tears off her pendant and stays, and Ellie kisses her. Runners drawn by their music break in, and after a desperate escape both girls are bitten. Riley says they can give up or fight to stay together until the end. In Colorado, Ellie gets back to Joel, stitches his wound and drags him away on a sled behind Callus.
- BostonBoston, Massachusetts is the first region after the time skip and the city where Ellie grew up. You play The Quarantine Zone and The Outskirts here, and Left Behind's flashbacks with Riley take place in the same city. FEDRA holds the North End as one of the last working quarantine zones in the country.
- BoulderBoulder, Colorado is where Joel and Ellie search the University of Eastern Colorado for the Fireflies in The University chapter. Left Behind's present-day story picks up nearby at the Colorado Mountain Plaza mall, so this region covers both the campus and the mall.
- Colorado Mountain PlazaColorado Mountain Plaza is the snowbound mall near Boulder where Ellie hunts for medical supplies in Left Behind's present-day chapters. You play Back in a Flash, So Close and The Enemy of My Enemy here, fighting both infected and hostile survivors.
- Liberty GardensLiberty Gardens is an abandoned two-level mall in Boston where Ellie and Riley spend a night together in Left Behind's flashback chapters. You explore it in Mallrats and Fun and Games, and it gives the final chapter, Escape from Liberty Gardens, its name.
- 1Back in a FlashBack in a Flash is the first chapter of Left Behind. After a short flashback to Riley's surprise visit at Ellie's school in Boston, you play Ellie in the snowed-in Colorado Mountain Plaza, searching the mall for anything that can help Joel.
- 2MallratsMallrats is the second chapter of Left Behind and the first full flashback: Ellie and Riley dodge a patrol in Boston, cross the rooftops and slip into the abandoned Liberty Gardens mall. It is a calm, story-driven chapter with Halloween masks, a brick-throwing contest that unlocks a trophy, and a breaker switch that brings the mall's lights back.
- 3So CloseSo Close is the third chapter of Left Behind, back in the present at the Colorado Mountain Plaza. Ellie has to restore power to reach the crashed military helicopter on the mall's upper level, which means siphoning gas for a generator, fighting stalkers in a flooded stockroom and sneaking through a pet store full of infected.
- 4Fun and GamesFun and Games is the fourth chapter of Left Behind and the busiest one for trophies: Ellie and Riley ride a carousel, wreck a photo booth, play pretend in Raja's Arcade and hold a water gun fight inside Liberty Gardens. Along the way Riley finally explains why she brought Ellie to the mall.
- 5The Enemy of My EnemyThe Enemy of My Enemy is the fifth chapter of Left Behind and its main combat chapter. With the medical kit in her pack, Ellie fights back across the Colorado Mountain Plaza to Joel's hiding place while armed survivors and infected roam the halls, and you can turn the two groups on each other.
- 6Escape from Liberty GardensEscape from Liberty Gardens is the final chapter of Left Behind: Ellie and Riley run from a horde of runners through the Boston mall, climbing scaffolding to find a way out. It has no collectibles, and finishing it unlocks the gold trophy Don't Go.
Related missions
- Storyline
Main story
The main story of The Last of Us Part I follows Joel, a smuggler in the Boston quarantine zone, as he escorts Ellie, a teenage girl who is immune to the Cordyceps infection, across the United States to the Fireflies. It runs 12 chapters, from Austin on the night of the outbreak in 2013 to the spring of 2034.
- Story
The University
The University sends Joel and Ellie on horseback across the University of Eastern Colorado near Boulder, looking for the science building where Tommy says the Fireflies are based. It mixes quiet exploration with a dorm full of infected and a fight against armed looters inside the lab building.
- Story
The Outskirts
The Outskirts takes Joel, Tess and Ellie out of the Boston quarantine zone and across the ruined city toward the capitol building, where Fireflies are meant to collect Ellie. It is where you meet clickers and learn to slip past them with thrown bricks and bottles, on a route through downtown, the Goldstone Building and a history museum.
Image: Naughty Dog / PlayStationStoryThe Quarantine Zone
The Quarantine Zone starts the story proper 20 years after the outbreak, inside Boston's military-run zone in August 2033. As Joel, now a smuggler, you and his partner Tess slip outside the wall to track down Robert, a dealer who owes them guns, and end up taking a new job from the Fireflies.