The Suburbs
The 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.
- Type
- Story
- Region
- Pittsburgh
Storylines
Part 6 of 12 in Main story
Found in
- PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a former quarantine zone now run by hunters who ambush anyone passing through. Joel and Ellie spend two chapters here, Pittsburgh and The Suburbs, and meet the brothers Henry and Sam. Expect heavy human combat and the largest pile of collectibles in the game.
- Waverly TownshipWaverly Township is the Pittsburgh suburb that Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam reach after escaping through the sewers, and the setting of the Suburbs section of The Suburbs chapter. Hunters with a sniper rifle and a Humvee are waiting.
Good to know
- Chapter 6 of 12; August 2033.
- Sections: Sewers and Suburbs.
- 18 collectibles: 10 artifacts, 4 Firefly pendants, 2 comics and 2 training manuals.
- Waterlogged trophy: ride the motorized platform across the flooded sewer room with Henry and Sam.
- Sam cannot swim, which is why the group needs that platform.
- Enemies: runners, stalkers and clickers in the sewers; hunters and a horde in the suburbs.
- Joel takes over a mounted sniper rifle partway through the Suburbs section.
Sections in order
1. Sewers: from the riverbank through the old sewer settlement. 2. Suburbs: the walk through Waverly Township, the sniper fight and the night at the radio tower.
Into the sewers
Joel wakes on the beach angry that the brothers ran, and Henry talks him down by pointing out he pulled them from the water. Past a wrecked boat with a note from a survivor called Ish, a grated pipe leads into the sewer. At the first fork the pairs split; Ellie crawls through a gap Joel opens to unlock a door. In the flooded room Ellie floats on a pallet to reach a generator, you pass two sleeping clickers, and the platform carries the others across.
The sewer settlement
Doors painted like a castle set off a noise trap that Henry says was an alarm. The tunnels were once a home: a school area, sleeping rooms, a nursery, and a soccer ball the kids kick around. A note in a room full of toys tells how the community ended. A dropping safety door then splits you into Joel with Sam and Henry with Ellie, and you clear stalkers before regrouping, barricading a door against a horde and holding off infected in a locker room until the kids get the exit open.
Sewer collectibles
Most of the chapter's collectibles are underground: six artifacts (among them the boat note, a kid's drawing and the rain catcher note), three pendants (Fuentes's, Righetti's and Scheffler's), the comic Antiparticles and the manual Bomb: Containment.
Suburbs
Above ground the kids explore the houses and spot a Firefly symbol. A sniper in a house down the street pins the group, so Joel works up the block alone, beats the sniper in a scuffle and uses his rifle to cover the others. The Humvee returns until a hunter's dropped Molotov sets it on fire; infected drawn by the noise follow, and you slip out through a gap in a fence. Four artifacts, White's pendant, Messenger Particle and Melee: Techniques are in this section.
Night at the tower
At the radio tower Henry and Joel swap stories, including a cross-country motorcycle trip Joel took with Tommy, and Henry admits his group is not coming. Ellie and Sam talk about what scares them, and she gives him the toy robot he wanted back in Pittsburgh.
The morning afterSpoilerShow
After Ellie leaves, Sam looks at a scratch on his leg. By morning he has turned and attacks Ellie. Henry fires a warning shot to keep Joel from his gun, then shoots Sam himself, and in his grief turns the gun on himself.
- AntiparticlesAntiparticles, issue 11 of Savage Starlight, lies on the console in the bridge of the wrecked fishing boat on the beach at the start of The Suburbs.
- Boat noteThe Boat note is an optional artifact on the bridge of the beached fishing boat at the very start of The Suburbs. Climb onto the deck, step into the wheelhouse and grab it from the console beside the Antiparticles comic.
- Bomb: ContainmentBomb: Containment is a training manual on a shelf in the sewers of The Suburbs. It makes nail bomb blasts 1.5 times wider.
- Cornered noteThe Cornered note is an optional artifact behind a door near the sewer ambush site in The Suburbs. After the runner and clicker attack, climb the stairs, go through the door on the left and find it on a bench by the bodies in the corner.
- Father's noteThe Father's note is an optional artifact in the brick house on the second street of the Pittsburgh suburbs. Go up to the second floor, enter the left bedroom and pick it up from the dresser.
- Fuentes's Firefly PendantFuentes's Firefly pendant is underwater next to a sunken car in the Sewers section of The Suburbs. It belonged to Eddie Fuentes, and you have to dive for it.
- Kid's drawingThe Kid's drawing is an optional artifact in the sewer nursery in The Suburbs. As you pass through the classroom area with Sam, search the bookcase beside the easel on the right.
- Looting noteThe Looting note is an optional artifact in the first brick house you reach after leaving the sewers in The Suburbs. Go upstairs to the back bedroom on the left and take it from the bedside table by the lamp.
- MatchbookGo to the third floor and take it from the computer desk at the top of the stairs, then use its code on the safe in a bedroom one floor down.
- Melee: TechniquesMelee: Techniques is a training manual Ellie fetches from an attic in the Suburbs section of The Suburbs. It gives modified melee weapons one more one-hit kill and stacks with Melee: Knots.
- Messenger ParticleMessenger Particle, issue 2 of Savage Starlight, is in an upstairs bathroom of the last house on the street in the Suburbs section of The Suburbs.
- Rain catcher noteThe Rain catcher note is an optional artifact in a sewer utility room in The Suburbs. After runners and a clicker ambush the group, enter the room on the right and check the table at the back, next to the rain-catching barrels.
- Righetti's Firefly PendantRighetti's Firefly pendant lies in shallow water inside a small duct just past the sewer entrance in The Suburbs. It belonged to Robert Righetti.
- Scheffler's Firefly PendantScheffler's Firefly pendant is inside a wrecked fishing boat at the start of The Suburbs, in the Sewers section. It belonged to Josh Scheffler.
- Sewers noteThe Sewers note is an optional artifact in the storage room Ellie opens by crawling through a vent in The Suburbs. Once she unlocks the door, head to the far left corner and take it from the table.
- Survivors noteThe Survivors note is an optional artifact in the last house of the Pittsburgh suburbs. Climb to the second floor, enter the first bedroom on the left and check the computer desk.
- Trading noteThe Trading note is an optional artifact in the sewer room with two clickers in The Suburbs. After you knock the pallet into the water, open the nearby door and look beside the mattress at the back of the room.
- White's Firefly PendantWhite's Firefly pendant hangs in a tree over a backyard swing set in the Suburbs section of The Suburbs. It belonged to Matthew White and must be knocked down.
- DannyDanny is one of the two guards of Ish's community in the Pittsburgh sewers. You learn about him from the Kid's drawing, found in the sewer nursery during The Suburbs.
- Ellie WilliamsEllie 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.
- HenryHenry is a young survivor from Hartford who is trying to get his little brother Sam out of hunter-held Pittsburgh. He and Joel get off to a bad start in a brawl, then team up to escape the city, and he fights beside you through the end of Pittsburgh and The Suburbs.
- IshIsh is a survivor you never meet in person: you learn his story from a trail of notes in The Suburbs, from his wrecked fishing boat on the riverbank to the sewer camp he built under Pittsburgh. Picking up his notes in order tells how one lonely man built, and lost, a community.
- Joel MillerJoel 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.
- KyleKyle is a father from the Pittsburgh suburbs who joined Ish's community in the sewers. In The Suburbs you learn his story from the Looting note and the Cornered note, and Ish mentions him in the Rain catcher note.
- SamSam is Henry's 13-year-old brother, a quiet, anxious kid who becomes Ellie's first friend her own age on the road. You travel with him from the hideout in Pittsburgh through the sewers and suburbs in The Suburbs.
- SusanSusan is Kyle's wife and one of the founding families of Ish's sewer community under Pittsburgh. In The Suburbs she appears only in notes: the Rain catcher note written to her and the Survivors note written about her.
- HatchetThe hatchet is a one-handed camp axe that kills any enemy except a bloater in one hit. It is the last bladed weapon you find, first turning up just after you leave Ish's abandoned settlement in the Pittsburgh sewers during The Suburbs.
- MacheteThe machete kills in one hit and swings faster than the hatchet, but breaks after three uses. The first one is in Ish's settlement in the Pittsburgh sewers during The Suburbs.
- Military sniperThe military sniper is a tripod-mounted bolt-action rifle you only use once, in The Suburbs. A hunter uses it to pin Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam down in the street; once Joel reaches the house and kills him, you man the rifle to cover the others.
- ShortyThe Shorty is a one-handed sawed-off shotgun that sits in your pistol slot. You find it in the Pittsburgh sewers during The Suburbs, on a bench to the left just after you set off the first sound trap.
Related missions
- Story
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh 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.
- Story
Bill's Town
Bill'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.
Image: Naughty Dog / PlayStationStoryBus Depot
Bus 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.
- Story
Jackson
Jackson 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.