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The Last of Us Trivia Quiz
The Last of Us is set roughly twenty years after a mutated Cordyceps fungus collapsed civilization and turned the infected into monsters. It follows a hardened smuggler named Joel who is hired to escort Ellie, a teenage girl who may be immune, across a dangerous, ruined America.
Q1. Which studio made The Last of Us game?
Answer: Naughty Dog. Development started in 2009 after Uncharted 2, when the studio split into two teams for the first time: one made Uncharted 3, the other The Last of Us. Game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann led it, and it came out on PlayStation 3 in 2013.
Q2. Who play Joel and Ellie in the HBO series?
Answer: Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Both had been in Game of Thrones but had never met before filming, and found they had instant chemistry. Casting was done over Zoom because of the pandemic, and co-creator Craig Mazin said he cared more about actors' "souls" than looking like the game characters.
Q3. Twenty years after the outbreak, in which city's quarantine zone is Joel working as a smuggler?
Answer: Boston. Joel and his partner Tess smuggle in the Boston zone, run by the agency FEDRA. Fireflies leader Marlene asks them to take Ellie to the Massachusetts State House. The outbreak itself began twenty years earlier near Austin, Texas, where Joel's daughter Sarah died.
Q4. Who composed the music for both the game and the TV series?
Answer: Gustavo Santaolalla. Known for minimalist scores, Santaolalla was brought in early on the game and used some instruments he was unfamiliar with to give a sense of danger and innocence. For the show he wrote the opening theme and the character-driven score, with David Fleming handling the action music.
Q5. Where has Joel's brother Tommy built a fortified settlement?
Answer: Jackson, Wyoming. In the game, Tommy and his wife Maria have built the settlement near a hydroelectric dam. Joel briefly tries to leave Ellie there before they head on to the University of Eastern Colorado. The TV series' second season finds Joel and Ellie living in Jackson.
Q6. What inspired the game's infected?
Answer: A segment of the BBC series Planet Earth. The 2006 nature documentary showed Cordyceps fungi taking over insects' movements. The game imagines the fungus evolving to infect humans. For the TV series, effects teams used time-lapse videos of real Cordyceps growth as animation references.
Q7. Who performed Joel and Ellie's voice and motion capture in the original game?
Answer: Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. Both helped shape the characters: Baker convinced Druckmann that a lonely Joel would care for Tess, and Johnson pushed for a stronger, more defensive Ellie. Both later took guest roles in the HBO series.
Q8. Who provides the Clickers' terrifying sound in both the game and the show?
Answer: Misty Lee. Audio lead Phillip Kovats described her sound as coming from the "back of the throat". Lee and Kovats returned to voice the Clickers for HBO, and Mazin had their look done with prosthetics by Chernobyl's Barrie and Sarah Gower rather than visual effects.
Q9. Which add-on follows Ellie and her best friend Riley?
Answer: Left Behind. The single-player downloadable campaign was later included in The Last of Us Remastered for PS4 in 2014. The TV series' first season adapted both the main game and Left Behind, with Storm Reid playing Riley.
Q10. Which Linda Ronstadt song gives Bill and Frank's TV episode its title?
Answer: "Long, Long Time". The song's themes of unfulfilled love and time healing wounds echo Bill and Frank's relationship, played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. Offerman won a Creative Arts Emmy for the role, one of the first season's eight wins.
Q11. Neil Druckmann's student idea merged a zombie story with the gameplay of which game?
Answer: Ico. He imagined Ico's gameplay in a Night of the Living Dead-style apocalypse, with a cop like Sin City's John Hartigan protecting a girl, and players often controlling her because of his heart condition. He later reworked it into The Last of Us.
Q12. Which character was originally intended to be the game's main antagonist?
Answer: Tess. The team found it hard to believe her motives as a villain, so she became Joel's partner instead. Bill's sexuality, left vague in early scripts, was also made clearer, and Ellie was redesigned to look younger and more like Ashley Johnson.
Q13. In which Canadian province was the first season of the TV series filmed?
Answer: Alberta. Shooting ran 218 days from July 2021 in Calgary, High River, Canmore and other towns. It was the largest production ever filmed in Alberta, generating about CA$182 million. Seasons two and three moved to British Columbia.
Q14. Which animals do Joel and Ellie encounter in the scene designed to show that "life goes on"?
Answer: Giraffes. Concept artist John Sweeney said the herd was meant to "reignite [Ellie's] lust for life" after her ordeal with David in the winter section. The game's chapters move through fall, winter and spring.
Q15. Whose photographs of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath were used to design flooded Pittsburgh?
Answer: Robert Polidori. The art team used his images as a reference point. They had to balance the directors' preference for simplicity with the artists' love of detail. On the TV series, production designer John Paino summed up the look as "the built world is unbuilt and rebuilt".
Q16. How many copies did the game sell in its first week?
Answer: Over 1.3 million. It was the biggest launch of 2013 at the time and sold 3.4 million in three weeks. In the UK it out-earned the film Man of Steel in its first 48 hours. By May 2019 it had sold more than 20 million copies across PS3 and PS4.
Q17. What was the second TV season's filming working title?
Answer: Mega Sword. It was filmed in British Columbia in 2024 across 60 to 70 locations, after delays from the writers' and actors' strikes. The third season began filming in March 2026 under the working title Calm Current.
Q18. The first TV season's budget per episode exceeded that of which show's first five seasons?
Answer: Game of Thrones. The first season cost over CA$100 million, more than $10 million an episode, and the budget grew for season two. It became HBO's most-watched debut season, averaging almost 32 million viewers per episode in the US.
Q19. In which year was the game inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame?
Answer: 2023. It was added at the Strong National Museum of Play in May 2023. The developers of God of War (2018) and A Plague Tale: Innocence named it an inspiration, and a fan who cut it into a TV-style series on YouTube was hired by Naughty Dog.
Q20. What happened to the planned The Last of Us film announced in 2014?
Answer: It fell into development hell and the rights lapsed. Druckmann was to write it, but by 2019 the rights had been given up. He then met Craig Mazin, and they agreed the story needed the length and pace of a TV series. It became PlayStation Productions' first show.
The Last of Us quiz answers and explanations
Every question from the quiz above with its correct answer, the story behind it, and where the fact comes from.
-
Which studio made The Last of Us game?
Answer: Naughty Dog. Development started in 2009 after Uncharted 2, when the studio split into two teams for the first time: one made Uncharted 3, the other The Last of Us. Game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann led it, and it came out on PlayStation 3 in 2013.
-
Who play Joel and Ellie in the HBO series?
Answer: Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Both had been in Game of Thrones but had never met before filming, and found they had instant chemistry. Casting was done over Zoom because of the pandemic, and co-creator Craig Mazin said he cared more about actors' "souls" than looking like the game characters.
-
Twenty years after the outbreak, in which city's quarantine zone is Joel working as a smuggler?
Answer: Boston. Joel and his partner Tess smuggle in the Boston zone, run by the agency FEDRA. Fireflies leader Marlene asks them to take Ellie to the Massachusetts State House. The outbreak itself began twenty years earlier near Austin, Texas, where Joel's daughter Sarah died.
-
Who composed the music for both the game and the TV series?
Answer: Gustavo Santaolalla. Known for minimalist scores, Santaolalla was brought in early on the game and used some instruments he was unfamiliar with to give a sense of danger and innocence. For the show he wrote the opening theme and the character-driven score, with David Fleming handling the action music.
-
Where has Joel's brother Tommy built a fortified settlement?
Answer: Jackson, Wyoming. In the game, Tommy and his wife Maria have built the settlement near a hydroelectric dam. Joel briefly tries to leave Ellie there before they head on to the University of Eastern Colorado. The TV series' second season finds Joel and Ellie living in Jackson.
-
What inspired the game's infected?
Answer: A segment of the BBC series Planet Earth. The 2006 nature documentary showed Cordyceps fungi taking over insects' movements. The game imagines the fungus evolving to infect humans. For the TV series, effects teams used time-lapse videos of real Cordyceps growth as animation references.
-
Who performed Joel and Ellie's voice and motion capture in the original game?
Answer: Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. Both helped shape the characters: Baker convinced Druckmann that a lonely Joel would care for Tess, and Johnson pushed for a stronger, more defensive Ellie. Both later took guest roles in the HBO series.
-
Who provides the Clickers' terrifying sound in both the game and the show?
Answer: Misty Lee. Audio lead Phillip Kovats described her sound as coming from the "back of the throat". Lee and Kovats returned to voice the Clickers for HBO, and Mazin had their look done with prosthetics by Chernobyl's Barrie and Sarah Gower rather than visual effects.
-
Which add-on follows Ellie and her best friend Riley?
Answer: Left Behind. The single-player downloadable campaign was later included in The Last of Us Remastered for PS4 in 2014. The TV series' first season adapted both the main game and Left Behind, with Storm Reid playing Riley.
-
Which Linda Ronstadt song gives Bill and Frank's TV episode its title?
Answer: "Long, Long Time". The song's themes of unfulfilled love and time healing wounds echo Bill and Frank's relationship, played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. Offerman won a Creative Arts Emmy for the role, one of the first season's eight wins.
-
Neil Druckmann's student idea merged a zombie story with the gameplay of which game?
Answer: Ico. He imagined Ico's gameplay in a Night of the Living Dead-style apocalypse, with a cop like Sin City's John Hartigan protecting a girl, and players often controlling her because of his heart condition. He later reworked it into The Last of Us.
-
Which character was originally intended to be the game's main antagonist?
Answer: Tess. The team found it hard to believe her motives as a villain, so she became Joel's partner instead. Bill's sexuality, left vague in early scripts, was also made clearer, and Ellie was redesigned to look younger and more like Ashley Johnson.
-
In which Canadian province was the first season of the TV series filmed?
Answer: Alberta. Shooting ran 218 days from July 2021 in Calgary, High River, Canmore and other towns. It was the largest production ever filmed in Alberta, generating about CA$182 million. Seasons two and three moved to British Columbia.
-
Which animals do Joel and Ellie encounter in the scene designed to show that "life goes on"?
Answer: Giraffes. Concept artist John Sweeney said the herd was meant to "reignite [Ellie's] lust for life" after her ordeal with David in the winter section. The game's chapters move through fall, winter and spring.
-
Whose photographs of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath were used to design flooded Pittsburgh?
Answer: Robert Polidori. The art team used his images as a reference point. They had to balance the directors' preference for simplicity with the artists' love of detail. On the TV series, production designer John Paino summed up the look as "the built world is unbuilt and rebuilt".
-
How many copies did the game sell in its first week?
Answer: Over 1.3 million. It was the biggest launch of 2013 at the time and sold 3.4 million in three weeks. In the UK it out-earned the film Man of Steel in its first 48 hours. By May 2019 it had sold more than 20 million copies across PS3 and PS4.
-
What was the second TV season's filming working title?
Answer: Mega Sword. It was filmed in British Columbia in 2024 across 60 to 70 locations, after delays from the writers' and actors' strikes. The third season began filming in March 2026 under the working title Calm Current.
-
The first TV season's budget per episode exceeded that of which show's first five seasons?
Answer: Game of Thrones. The first season cost over CA$100 million, more than $10 million an episode, and the budget grew for season two. It became HBO's most-watched debut season, averaging almost 32 million viewers per episode in the US.
-
In which year was the game inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame?
Answer: 2023. It was added at the Strong National Museum of Play in May 2023. The developers of God of War (2018) and A Plague Tale: Innocence named it an inspiration, and a fan who cut it into a TV-style series on YouTube was hired by Naughty Dog.
-
What happened to the planned The Last of Us film announced in 2014?
Answer: It fell into development hell and the rights lapsed. Druckmann was to write it, but by 2019 the rights had been given up. He then met Craig Mazin, and they agreed the story needed the length and pace of a TV series. It became PlayStation Productions' first show.
The Last of Us by the numbers
- Game released
- 2013 (PlayStation 3)
- Developer
- Naughty Dog
- Game sales
- over 20 million by 2019
- Composer
- Gustavo Santaolalla
- HBO series premiere
- 15 January 2023
- Season 1 average audience
- almost 32 million per episode
- Season 1 Creative Arts Emmys
- 8
- Season 1 filmed in
- Alberta, Canada
About the The Last of Us quiz
The Last of Us is one story told twice, as a 2013 game and as an HBO series, which gives a quiz two production histories to draw on. A student idea, a nature documentary about a fungus, actors who reshaped their characters and a composer who worked on both versions all play a part. That mix of game and TV history is what this quiz covers.
Questions cover the journey — Joel and Ellie, the stages of the infected, factions like the Fireflies, and the moments that made the story so talked-about.
What this The Last of Us quiz covers
The quiz covers Joel and Ellie's journey in both the 2013 game and the HBO series. You get the key places and characters, plus how both were made: Neil Druckmann's student idea, the nature documentary behind the infected, the actors who shaped the characters, the Clicker voice, the music, where the show was filmed, what it cost and the records it set. Each answer below explains the story behind it and links to the source, the game or the TV series article.
How to play
Tap an answer to see the right one straight away, with the story behind it, and check your score at the end. Play Again resets the quiz.
The Last of Us quiz — frequently asked questions
Is this about the game or the show?
Both. Each answer in the key says whether its source is the game article or the TV series article.
Is it spoiler-heavy?
Lightly. The questions avoid the ending and concern places, characters and production.
Does it cover Part II or season two?
Only briefly. One question mentions season two's filming title. Everything else is about the first game and first season.