Ellie Williams
Ellie Williams is the 14-year-old girl Joel is hired to smuggle out of Boston, and your companion for most of The Last of Us Part I. She was bitten weeks earlier and never turned, so the Fireflies believe her immunity could lead to a vaccine. You play as her in the winter chapter and in the Left Behind DLC.
- Role
- Protagonist
Good to know
- Voiced and performed by Ashley Johnson.
- Born in 2019, years after the outbreak, and raised as an orphan in the Boston quarantine zone, where she attends a military preparatory school.
- Her mother Anna died the day she was born; Marlene, Anna's friend, promised to look out for her.
- Carries her mother's switchblade and a letter from Anna that Marlene gave her.
- Cannot swim, so Joel ferries her across deep water on pallets and planks.
- Reads bad puns out of her No Pun Intended joke books and is a fan of the Savage Starlight comics.
- Has never seen woods or real fireflies until she reaches Lincoln.
- Wants to be an astronaut, she tells Joel at the university.
- Trusted with a hunting rifle in Pittsburgh, and later with her own pistol, which Joel says is for emergencies only.
Who she is
Ellie is quick-tongued, curious and tougher than she looks. Everything outside the quarantine wall is new to her, so she asks Joel endless questions about life before the outbreak, from ice cream trucks to movie posters. She swears freely, teases Bill about his weight and flips him off in his own armory, but she also carries real guilt about the people who get hurt helping her.
As a companion
When Ellie follows Joel she stays out of sight during stealth and enemies cannot spot her, so she never gives away your position. She shouts warnings about where enemies are, sometimes passes over ammo or a health kit, throws bricks and bottles to stun humans, and stabs anyone who grabs Joel. Once she has a gun she shoots at hunters on her own. Joel lifts her to high ledges so she can drop ladders and open doors from the other side.
Playing as Ellie
You control Ellie in Lakeside Resort, the winter chapter, where she hunts deer with a bow, fights infected beside a stranger named David and later has to survive entirely on her own. She is weaker than Joel in a brawl and cannot grab enemies from behind, so she relies on stealth, her knife and thrown objects. Left Behind puts you in her shoes again at the Colorado Mountain Plaza mall and in flashbacks with her best friend Riley at Liberty Gardens in Boston.
Things she keeps
By winter Ellie carries a small collection of keepsakes: her mother's letter, the switchblade, Riley's Firefly pendant, her Walkman, the joke books and a photo of Joel and Sarah that she takes from Tommy's place in Jackson without asking.
Losses on the roadSpoilerShow
Riley turns after the night they are both bitten, and Tess, Sam and Henry die on the trip west, which leaves Ellie with heavy survivor's guilt. In the winter she trades deer meat to David for penicillin that saves Joel, then learns his group are the cannibals from the university. She kills James to escape and finally hacks David to death in a burning restaurant, where Joel finds her.
Salt Lake City and afterSpoilerShow
Ellie nearly drowns in the flooded tunnels outside Salt Lake City and is carried off by the Fireflies for surgery that would kill her. She wakes up in the back of Joel's car with no memory of the hospital. On the walk into Jackson she tells Joel about Riley and asks him to swear his story about the Fireflies is true. He does, and the game leaves it open whether she believes him.
- Back in a FlashBack in a Flash is the first chapter of Left Behind. After a short flashback to Riley's surprise visit at Ellie's school in Boston, you play Ellie in the snowed-in Colorado Mountain Plaza, searching the mall for anything that can help Joel.
- MallratsMallrats is the second chapter of Left Behind and the first full flashback: Ellie and Riley dodge a patrol in Boston, cross the rooftops and slip into the abandoned Liberty Gardens mall. It is a calm, story-driven chapter with Halloween masks, a brick-throwing contest that unlocks a trophy, and a breaker switch that brings the mall's lights back.
The Quarantine ZoneThe Quarantine Zone starts the story proper 20 years after the outbreak, inside Boston's military-run zone in August 2033. As Joel, now a smuggler, you and his partner Tess slip outside the wall to track down Robert, a dealer who owes them guns, and end up taking a new job from the Fireflies.- So CloseSo Close is the third chapter of Left Behind, back in the present at the Colorado Mountain Plaza. Ellie has to restore power to reach the crashed military helicopter on the mall's upper level, which means siphoning gas for a generator, fighting stalkers in a flooded stockroom and sneaking through a pet store full of infected.
- The OutskirtsThe Outskirts takes Joel, Tess and Ellie out of the Boston quarantine zone and across the ruined city toward the capitol building, where Fireflies are meant to collect Ellie. It is where you meet clickers and learn to slip past them with thrown bricks and bottles, on a route through downtown, the Goldstone Building and a history museum.
- Bill's TownBill's Town brings Joel and Ellie to Lincoln, Massachusetts, a small town that Joel's paranoid contact Bill has rigged with traps to keep the infected out. Bill owes Joel a favor, so you team up with him to find a working car, which means a trip through a clicker-filled graveyard and an infected high school.
- Fun and GamesFun and Games is the fourth chapter of Left Behind and the busiest one for trophies: Ellie and Riley ride a carousel, wreck a photo booth, play pretend in Raja's Arcade and hold a water gun fight inside Liberty Gardens. Along the way Riley finally explains why she brought Ellie to the mall.
- PittsburghPittsburgh is the chapter where hunters take over: armed locals who drove out the military and now ambush anyone passing through. Joel and Ellie are forced off the road downtown, fight through the Hotel Grand and the Financial District, and join brothers Henry and Sam to reach the bridge out of the city.
- The Enemy of My EnemyThe Enemy of My Enemy is the fifth chapter of Left Behind and its main combat chapter. With the medical kit in her pack, Ellie fights back across the Colorado Mountain Plaza to Joel's hiding place while armed survivors and infected roam the halls, and you can turn the two groups on each other.
- Escape from Liberty GardensEscape from Liberty Gardens is the final chapter of Left Behind: Ellie and Riley run from a horde of runners through the Boston mall, climbing scaffolding to find a way out. It has no collectibles, and finishing it unlocks the gold trophy Don't Go.
- The SuburbsThe Suburbs picks up on a riverbank outside Pittsburgh, with Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam heading for a radio tower where Henry hopes to meet his group. You cross a flooded sewer that was once home to a community of survivors, then fight hunters and their Humvee on a quiet street in Waverly Township.
- Tommy's DamTommy's Dam brings Joel and Ellie to Jackson County, Wyoming, months after Pittsburgh, where they find Joel's brother Tommy helping run a hydroelectric plant for his wife Maria's settlement. It is a short chapter built around a reunion and two fights with bandits, one at the dam and one at an old ranch house.
- The UniversityThe University sends Joel and Ellie on horseback across the University of Eastern Colorado near Boulder, looking for the science building where Tommy says the Fireflies are based. It mixes quiet exploration with a dorm full of infected and a fight against armed looters inside the lab building.
Lakeside ResortLakeside Resort jumps to winter and puts you in control of Ellie near Silver Lake, Colorado, hunting with a bow and searching for medicine. She runs into two strangers, David and James, and for part of the second half the game switches you back to Joel.
Bus DepotBus Depot opens in the spring of 2034 as Joel and Ellie walk into Salt Lake City, aiming for the Fireflies at Saint Mary's Hospital. The route runs along a highway full of dead cars, through the Logan James bus station and an abandoned quarantine zone, and down into a flooded tunnel full of infected.- The Firefly LabThe Firefly Lab is the second-to-last chapter, set inside Saint Mary's Hospital in Salt Lake City, where the Fireflies have their base. It is a single section played as Joel, and its five collectibles include the recordings that explain what the Fireflies have learned from Ellie.
- JacksonJackson is the short closing chapter of the main story: you play as Ellie, walking through the woods with Joel toward Tommy's settlement in Wyoming in the spring of 2034. It has one section, the Epilogue, and one collectible, the comic Singularity.
- BostonBoston, Massachusetts is the first region after the time skip and the city where Ellie grew up. You play The Quarantine Zone and The Outskirts here, and Left Behind's flashbacks with Riley take place in the same city. FEDRA holds the North End as one of the last working quarantine zones in the country.
- Colorado Mountain PlazaColorado Mountain Plaza is the snowbound mall near Boulder where Ellie hunts for medical supplies in Left Behind's present-day chapters. You play Back in a Flash, So Close and The Enemy of My Enemy here, fighting both infected and hostile survivors.
- Liberty GardensLiberty Gardens is an abandoned two-level mall in Boston where Ellie and Riley spend a night together in Left Behind's flashback chapters. You explore it in Mallrats and Fun and Games, and it gives the final chapter, Escape from Liberty Gardens, its name.
- Silver LakeSilver Lake is a snowbound Colorado resort town and the setting of the Lakeside Resort chapter, where Ellie is playable for most of the winter. A group led by David lives here. Its surroundings include an abandoned coal mine and the Whitefish Lake rest area.
Related characters
- Protagonist
Joel Miller
Joel Miller is the man you play for almost all of The Last of Us Part I. A hardened smuggler in the Boston quarantine zone, he takes a job escorting 14-year-old Ellie out of the city, and the drop-off turns into a year-long trip across the country to find the Fireflies.
- Companion
Callus
Callus is the horse Joel and Ellie ride from Jackson County to the University of Eastern Colorado and beyond. He first carries Joel when Ellie runs off in Tommy's Dam, and Ellie names him on the road to the university.
- Supporting
Riley Abel
Riley Abel is Ellie's best friend from the military school in the Boston quarantine zone and the co-star of the Left Behind DLC. She appears in the Liberty Gardens flashback chapters Mallrats, Fun and Games and Escape from Liberty Gardens, and Ellie brings her up during the main story.
- Minor
Winston Asher
Sergeant Winston Asher is a FEDRA soldier who once kept a camp and a horse in Boston's Liberty Gardens mall. In Left Behind, Ellie and Riley find his empty camp in Mallrats, and his notes show how he saw the two girls.