The Last of Us storyline explained

When the trailer for “The Last of Us” was released gamers have been speculation what the game was about and who the man and girl are.

When we meet the game characters in the launch trailer with the world destroyed and most of the human population mutated. We also seen that the game was set in a post-apocalyptic setting. Thanks though to Game Informer we know more about the plot, the game and Joel and Ellie.

Creative Director Neil Druckmann describes in the video, “The story takes place 20 years after this apocalyptic event happens.” He tells us that the government has fallen apart and the military have taken over and created quarantine zones. Druckmann goes on to say that even the quarantine zones begin to fall apart, as supplies run low, people start losing their minds, and the infected start finding ways into the safe zones, whether by accident or through some basic thinking.

Druckmann explains, “Our story picks up in one of the last remaining quarantine zones, Martial law rules the day, and any infraction — even minor ones — result in immediate execution. The quarantined city the game begins in is split up into various, heavily-guarded sections, and scanning for the infected happens constantly. If you scan positive for infection, you’re taken off to the side and euthanized.”

Naughty Dog talk a bit about Joel, they say he’s in his 40’s so he would remember the world before the infection happened. Over time to survive he’s become less moral and doing what needs to be done to see the next day. He works as a smuggler in a Black Market in one of the quarantine zones and smuggles “contraband” such as drugs, weapons, items that aren’t exactly over the counter. At the start he is given a job to smuggle a girl out of the city, this girl is Ellie. Druckmann said they aren’t ready to say why she is been smuggled out.

In my opinion she might has a cure to the mutation in her blood? Something that will help humanity but the powers at be don’t want a cure. Again that’s just my own opinion.

In contrast to Joel, Ellie was born in the quarantine zone and only knows life inside the zone. She was raised in a military run orphanage. Ellie has a great interest in media from before the outbreak, such as music and comics.

When Joel and Ellie leave the zone it goes wrong and Joel can’t return to the zone as he is now wanted by the military. Having made a oath to a friend within the city that he’d look after and protect Ellie, they move on outside of the city as a team. Joel knows someone outside of the safety of the quarantine zone and looks to unload Ellie so he can move on alone.

But with any Naughty Dog game the story will be driven by the characters and the plot.