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.

  • Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
  • Check whether something is official before treating it as canon.
  • Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.

There are two Last of Us canons running in parallel now — the games and the HBO series — and they diverge. Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers. Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release.

Where it fits with the game

The Last of Us is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.

Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows.

What exists officially

Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

  • Expect licensed music to be missing from re-releases.
  • Credit fan artists if you reuse their work.
  • If a menu path does not exist for you, your build is older or newer than the one described.
  • Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
  • Look for an official assets page before downloading anything.
  • Region and platform change more than people expect, so confirm both.

Whether it is worth your time

Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Everything below is framed around the current state of The Last of Us rather than a launch-week impression.

What is fan-made

The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

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 a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Where to find it legitimately

Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

Where people go wrong

  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.

The Last of Us FAQ

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

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

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

Is it any good?

The reception is mixed and depends heavily on what you wanted from it. The section above sets that expectation honestly.

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.

Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.