The Last of Us has spawned enough surrounding work that the ordering question comes up constantly.
Short answer
The short version: it is canon where the developers say it is, and enjoyable regardless.
- Expect licensed music to be missing from re-releases.
- Credit fan artists if you reuse their work.
- Expect one number in every guide to be out of date; the method is what matters.
There are two Last of Us canons running in parallel now — the games and the HBO series — and they diverge. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them. Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers.
What exists officially
The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.
Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates. Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.
What is fan-made
Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Everything below is framed around the current state of The Last of Us rather than a launch-week impression.
- Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
- Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
- Write down what you changed, so you can undo exactly one thing if it goes sideways.
- Look for an official assets page before downloading anything.
- Check whether something is official before treating it as canon.
Where to find it legitimately
The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.
A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. 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.
Whether it is worth your time
The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.
Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.
Where it fits with the game
The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.
Where people go wrong
- Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
- Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
- Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.
The Last of Us FAQ
Is it any good?
The reception is mixed and depends heavily on what you wanted from it. The section above sets that expectation honestly.
How long does this take?
Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.
Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?
No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.
Do I need it to understand the game?
No. It adds background rather than filling gaps the game leaves open.
Come back to the caveats list if it does not work first time — the answer is almost always in there.