Can You Save Everyone in The Last of Us Part I?

The Last of Us Part I features a fair few fatalities, and we’re not just talking about the infected. Some of the characters you meet won’t make it through to the end of the game. But is there anything you can do about it? Can you save everyone in The Last of Us Part I?

Do You Have any Control over Who Lives or Dies in The Last of Us Part I?

The story of The Last of Us Part I is strictly linear, with no branching. You have no control over how the story unfolds or who lives and who dies. Character X was always doomed to die, thanks to a gloomy, gloomy script. They die no matter how many infected you kill or how fast you kill them.

Unfortunately, there’s no non-canon Max Payne 2-style ending where beating the game on maximum difficulty gets you a slightly different ending. There is, however, one moment when you have to kill a specific character to proceed and trying to spare them leads to a game over. You can choose to use a flamethrower on them, which is pretty horrific, but that’s the limit of your agency.

Is the lack of player choice a bad thing? Not really, since The Last of Us Part I tells a fantastic story. Besides which, we’ve played plenty of games where you’re offered choices, yet they turned out to have minimal impact on the story. That can be more frustrating than not having a choice at all. 

So, no, you can’t save everyone in The Last of Us Part I.

If you’re still interested in checking out the game on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, you can find out about the different editions and associated pre-order bonuses in our guide.