Joel and Ellie came a long way during their journey in The Last of Us, venturing from as far east as Boston to as far west as Utah. After all the events of the first game, the two finally settled in a fictional version of the real town of Jackson, Wyoming. In between, Ellie and Joel spent a full year traveling across several of the United States to reach the Fireflies in Utah. This all took place about 20 years after "Outbreak Day," the day the Cordyceps Brain Infection ravaged the United States and the world. The Last of Us Part 2 begins just a few years later in Jackson County.
While The Last of Us Part 2 doesn't have as much of a cross-country adventure as the first part, the majority of the game does explore a vast region in the northwestern coast of the United States. Ellie's tale of revenge starts in the same fictional version of Jackson, Wyoming, but expands as far north as Washington state and as far south as southern California. There are some additional locations explored in flashbacks, but the majority of the game takes place in Seattle and the surrounding Pacific Northwest.
Note: There will be spoilers for The Last of Us, but no direct spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 ahead.
Jackson City
Jackson city resembles the safe haven that Joel and Ellie reach at the end of The Last of Us. Joel's brother Tommy had once told Joel that he had found a safe community in Jackson upon leaving his Firefly life behind. Even though Joel still carried out his days as a smuggler, Tommy had always encouraged Joel to come to Jackson whenever he was ready, so after saving Ellie from the Firefly lab in Utah, Joel and Ellie eventually made their way to Jackson County to find peace after their long journey across the country. Jackson was a thriving community of survivors of the old world, utilizing hydroelectric power to enjoy modern conveniences and a far cry from the quarantine zones.
Interestingly enough, Jackson is a very real place in the state of Wyoming that's geographically accurate to how it's depicted in The Last of Us and Part 2. Nestled in a valley between Snow King Mountain, Millers Butte, and just south of the Grand Teton National Park, Jackson is a small tourist town full of ski resorts and small-town American charm. Also known as Jackson Hole, the area is a haven for visitors of the Rocky Mountain Range and Yellowstone National Park just a few miles away. While in The Last of Us Part 2 the town is severely down-sized for the apocalypse, it's quite accurate to where the actual town resides in 2020.
Seattle
Several years after Joel and Ellie have made their home in Jackson, a pivotal event in the game's story forces Ellie to leave Jackson. Her goal is to reach the dilapidated city of Seattle on a quest for revenge. The former FEDRA quarantine zone was decimated and overtaken by a militia known as the Washington Liberation Front, or Wolves for short. The Wolves have been at war with the religious cult known as the Seraphites for several years after Outbreak Day, annexing and destroying various districts of Seattle in the process. For a little over 25 years, Seattle has become overgrown, run-down, and flooded over time in pure apocalyptic fashion. Obviously that's not the case in 2020.
As several fans and residents of Seattle have begun to point out recently, Seattle was also adapted into The Last of Us Part 2 as accurately as possible. Obviously Seattle in 2020 doesn't have whitewater rapids running along main street, but in terms of the remnant architecture and infrastructure, it's relatively close to the city in real life. Much of Seattle's downtown in The Last of Us Part 2, while condensed and not to scale, is rebuilt in proper apocalyptic erosion like the Seattle Public Library. Even the CenturyLink Field, though used in a very different manner in The Last of Us Part 2, is architecturally accurate to how it was originally built. Seattle's iconic Great Wheel and Pier 57 even make their appearance in The Last of Us Part 2 in a prominent way.
Realizing An Apocalyptic Pacific Northwest
There are also additional places visited in The Last of Us Part 2 that occur in miscellaneous parts of the story. Because of the narrative design in The Last of Us Part 2, there are several short-term locations shown in flashbacks throughout the game as well. There are locations in Utah, Wyoming, the Farm, and Santa Barbara, each focused on a specific part of the story that gets their own time to shine. At the risk of reaching any spoilers, the names of the exact locations (if available) will be omitted for players to find and experience themselves. All in all, the entirety of The Last of Us Part 2 sticks to the American west in frankly surprising detail.
There's been a clear up step up since The Last of Us in the sheer detail of environments throughout the in-game world. Downtown Seattle in its decaying form was realized with just the right amount of attention to detail and artistic freedom. The Last of Us Part 2's director Neil Druckmann even stated that level/environment designers studied the architecture and foliage of the surrounding regions to accurately reflect what Seattle would look like overthrown by nature. This version of Seattle is the closest thing resembling an apocalyptic reality in an American city where modern society as we know it is gone.
The Last of Us Part 2 is available now on PS4.
