Naughty Dog’s cordyceps infection thanks to a few significant clues placed throughout the game.
A newspaper clipping that can be found inside Sarah and Joel’s house at the start of the original The Last of Us confirms the infection started in South America and then spread to America and Mexico next, implying these are the hardest-hit places in the globe since they had to deal with the outbreak first.
Unfortunately, there are no newspaper clippings to be discovered in The Last of Us: Part 2 that reveal specific information about the outside world, which is to be expected given that there haven’t been newspapers being printed since before the infection. But players can infer certain things about the rest of the world apart from America thanks to details revealed in the latter half of The Last of Us: Part 2's story.
What We Know About The World In Last Of Us 2
If one thing is clear from the ending of The Last of Us: Part 2, it’s that different, powerful factions are forming across the U.S. (and likely across the world, too). In the final chapter, players are introduced to the Rattlers, based in Santa Monica, who capture Lev and Abby in order to force them into their strange fight-club like situation. It’s never fully revealed what the Rattlers do to their captives, but it’s clear they’re forcing them into some sort of slavery. This suggests that other groups across the U.S. and other parts of the world may be similarly forcing people into slavery for all sorts of reasons, possibly even to help cultivate food or fight off the infected.
The The Last of Us: Part 2 also revealed that the Fireflies are supposedly trying to re-group somewhere in California. While it’s unclear how strong the group was at the end of the game, this could suggest they are on the cusp of discovering a new cure. After all, that’s what united the group in the first game. It’s implied various times that Abby’s father was the only doctor with the ability to create a cure, but somewhere in the world there must be others with the knowledge to work on something similar. Whether it’s the Fireflies or another similar group, it’s likely that there are people somewhere in The Last of Us world that are continuing to try and find a cure, which could be good set up for a third game.
There are also intense, cult-like groups such as the Seraphites forming, which implies that other groups with similarly controversial beliefs are rising in number across the world. The Scars reject ‘old world’ technology, believing it to be responsible for the onset of the infection, and with that in mind, it would make sense if other groups held similar theories to explain how and why the infection started in the first place. Although The Last of Us: Part 2 doesn’t provide specific details into the state of the rest of the world, certain details can help give context into what players can expect it to look like — and it doesn’t sound much better than what’s going on in the U.S.
