If you've been enjoying the new HBO video game adaptation The Last of Us, then you may well be interested in finding out as much as you can about the show, including where it was filmed.
Well, if you've met The Last of Us cast, understood how the show's clickers work and read up on who the Fireflies are, you might also be interested in looking up The Last of Us' locations, to see where it was filmed.
While the majority of the show was filmed in Canada, there are plenty of locations used over the nine episodes. If you love the show, you may well want to plan your own The Last of Us road trip, or simply look at what the locations look like in real life.
To that end, this The Last of Us locations guide will bring you through some of the most important locations of the show, as well as where they were filmed. To help you avoid spoilers, this guide will be listed in episodical order.
The Last of Us locations in episode 1
High River & Fort Macleod
The beginning of the first episode is set in Austin, the state capital of Texas. However, filming wasn't even done in the US.
Instead, two towns in Alberta, Canada were used. These are High River and Fort Macleod, the latter also being the birthplace of Joni Mitchell. Another town, Olds, was used for reshoots for certain shots.
Joel and Sarah are shown living in a cul-de-sac which is actually in High River. The intense driving sequence which is shown as one long take uses Fort Macleod,
Since the TV show takes place in the outskirts of Austin, pre-apocalypse, few changes were made to the sets, unlike for all the subsequent post-apocalypse locations...
Calgary
Lots of the first episode takes place in the Boston Quarantine Zone, a small area of Boston that has been closed off from the infected to protect the remaining inhabitants. We see life going on in these areas, and for some people, it appears as though life is going on as normal.
These scenes weren't filmed in Boston though — instead, a whole bespoke area was created, to resemble a real area. Construction took multiple months to complete on this.
This was made in Calgary, in the Ramsay neighborhood of the city.
The Last of Us locations in episode 2
Calgary interiors
The beginning of episode two is set in Jakarta, Indonesia, but as the distinct scarcity of establishing shots suggests, the team didn't fly all the way to Indonesia to shoot.
Instead, most of the interior scenes take place over Calgary.
Edmonton
Lots of the second episode of The Last of Us takes place in Boston, once Joel, Ellie and Tess have escaped the Quarantine Zone. It's a ruined and crumbling area that, before the apocalypse, would have served as the downtown area.
While the TV show wasn't filmed in downtown Boston, it was filmed in an equally metropolitan area — shooting took place in Edmonton, the capital of the Alberta province of Canada.
Lots of shots were done on Rice Howard Way, however to replicate Boston's brick- and tree-lined streets, the production crew had to manually add bricks and trees to the locations.
More filming was done in the downtown and Beltline areas of Calgary. To show the ruined skyline behind the streets in Edmonton and Calgary, green screens were used, and CGI was used at many other points to add ruins or vines.
Alberta Legislature Building
While Tess and Joel have to deliver Ellie to Fireflies waiting at Massachusetts State House, the Capitol Building of Massachusetts in Boston, the place they actually deliver her to is the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton.
This splendid building was partly decked out in vines to give it a more decrepit look, though it obviously wasn't blown up, like the State House was in the show.
As with most interior locations, the scenes set inside the State House were actually filmed on a sound stage, not inside the State House itself.
