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.

  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Keep a save or backup from before you start — it costs nothing and occasionally saves an evening.

There are two Last of Us canons running in parallel now — the games and the HBO series — and they diverge. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively.

The practical answer

Everything below is framed around the current state of The Last of Us rather than a launch-week impression. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of The Last of Us. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

What to do instead

Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about.

  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.

When the usual advice fails

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. 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. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters.

Why it works this way

The Last of Us is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time.

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 your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

Worth knowing alongside this

Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

Where people go wrong

  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.

The Last of Us FAQ

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.

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.

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

Does this change between platforms?

The behaviour does not. Where menu paths or prompts differ, that is noted above.

That is the whole of it — if something here stops matching The Last of Us, the game changed, not the method.