10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About The Last Of Us

2. Tess Was Originally The Villain

The first part of The Last Of Us would have played out the same as the finished version until the group reached a security checkpoint, at which point Ellie's infection would be discovered, prompting Joel to kill the guards in a fit of rage. He and Ellie would have run off together, but a major difference would have been his betrayal of Tess, who would then follow Joel across the country in search of revenge. Tess would catch up to them in an old ranch house, where Joel holds her off so that Ellie can make her escape. Tess proceeds to torture Joel for information regarding Ellie's whereabouts, but before she can blow Joel's brains out, she's shot by Ellie. The game ends with Joel and Ellie arriving in San Francisco where they would try to rebuild their lives. It goes without saying that it would have been an almost entirely new journey for both characters, especially when coupled with the fact that a key point of Ellie's original arc revolved around her refusal to take another life up until she kills Tess. Druckmann ultimately decided to do away with the alternate storyline, as he claimed that it just didn't feel honest to the characters.