This comes up often enough in The Last of Us that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

Short answer

In most cases the straightforward approach works. The exceptions are specific and listed below.

  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Give a method one honest attempt before deciding it does not work.

There are two Last of Us canons running in parallel now — the games and the HBO series — and they diverge. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have.

When the usual advice fails

Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

The practical answer

Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of The Last of Us. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.

Worth knowing alongside this

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

Why it works this way

Everything below is framed around the current state of The Last of Us rather than a launch-week impression. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

The Last of Us is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

What to do instead

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows.

Where people go wrong

  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.

The Last of Us FAQ

Is this still accurate after the latest The Last of Us update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

What is the short answer?

It is the paragraph near the top. Everything after it exists for the cases where that paragraph does not quite fit.

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

If you only take one thing from this: the answer near the top is the part that matters, the rest is context.