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Pittsburgh is a city in Pennsylvania and one of the many locations that Joel and Ellie visited across the United States in The Last of Us in their quest to find the Fireflies. Hunters currently control the former east coast quarantine zone after overthrowing the military.[6]

History[]

Chaos in the suburbs[]

Shortly after the Cordyceps brain infection outbreak occurred, the suburb known as Waverly Township outside the Pittsburgh city center descended into chaos. Initially, people boarded up their houses, hoping to wait out the crisis. However, as time passed and food supplies dwindled, the residents began turning on each other.[7] The Carsons, Kara, Kyle, Susan, and numerous other families found themselves fighting against looters daily.[8][4]

Concurrently, Ish returned to the mainland with his fishing boat[9] and lived among Pittsburgh's sewers.[10] Seeking company, he eventually invited Danny,[11] Susan, Kyle, their children, and numerous others living within the Pittsburgh suburbs to join him, safe from infected and looter attacks.[12] The families accepted his offer.[8] The community soon grew to about 50 residents. They were very organized, having a code of conduct, rain catchers, shower stalls, and a school. They kept animals, as evidenced by several small cages found throughout the settlement.[13]

FEDRA rule within the city[]

Meanwhile within the city, FEDRA placed the area under martial law, designating Pittsburgh as a military-controlled quarantine zone. Captain Mastros commanded the zone under Colonel Mackenzie's supervision from the Atlanta QZ.[5]

Several years prior to 2033, citizens became restless over a lack of rations, accusing FEDRA and the military of keeping food from them.[6] The residents soon desired new leadership, specifically to control the zone themselves.[14] As such, the residents began protesting against FEDRA's rule within the city. However, the military revolted against the protestors, killing several of them (including Eva's son) and branded them as traitors.[1]

Noticing the residents discontent with FEDRA's rule, the Fireflies eventually situated themselves within the city and instigated a revolution, causing many citizens to rise up and participate in the fighting.[15] Over the next 14 months, the rebels killed more soldiers and took control over more parts of the city.[14][16] They succeeded in taking Troy Hill, managing to push the soldiers back across the river within the city and separating Pam and Jeremy from their squad.[3] The rebels also hanged captured soldiers as well, writing messages on building walls to publicise their brutality and insistence to fight against FEDRA's rule.[6]

Eventually, the military forces of Pittsburgh were defeated and driven out of the zone,[5] with the rebels massacring any soldiers and military supporters that remained, including Mastros.[17] Anyone who refused to participate in the final battle was banished by the rebels.[14] In addition to this, the rebels turned on the Firefly agitators who started the revolt in the first place, since the citizens believed that they had done most of the fighting therefore deserved to rule the city themselves, independent from Firefly leadership.[15] They subsequently captured and hanged numerous Fireflies, leaving the rebels as the sole residents in the city.[6]

Falling under hunter control[]

After the uprising, the rebels established control over the city. They set up several patrol routes across the city, monitoring numerous buildings to keep infected presence low and also scavenge for supplies. Particularly, they extensively survieled the Skyarrow Bridge, intent on making it difficult for survivors to enter or exit the city unnoticed.[6]

Meanwhile, in the sewers, Ish's community faced an infected horde attack after a resident failed to secure the doors. Kyle and some of the children were trapped in a classroom, and opted to commit suicide.[18] Ish, Susan, and a few of the children escaped into Waverly Township,[19] but had fled from the area by 2033.[6]

Within the city, as the years passed, supplies grew harder to find and the citizens lacked the ability to grow their own food. Growing desperate, three teenagers killed a family that wandered into the city, and stole their supplies. They were put on a public trial only for the leader to praise their efforts in procuring supplies and ordered the rest to follow their example. Several people quickly expressed outrage at this, but the leader killed them for speaking out. Eventually, despite some hesitancy, hunting survivors became a common practice to Pittsburgh citizens. This is how the rebels became hunters.[20] 

By 2033, hunters refer to any survivors entering their city as "tourists".[6][21] The hunters use this to their advantage by tricking tourists into thinking a hunter is hurt. They then proceed to rob and kill them once they stop to help.[6]

Efforts were made to expand the hunters' control beyond the centre of the city, but this was met with mixed results over the years. Regardless of their failures, every time a new leader came into power over the hunters, they continued to try and expand their control.[6] However, with Ish's community no longer within the area, the hunter's efforts did lead them to control the suburbs outside the city.[7]

Events of The Last of Us[]

Joel and Ellie arrive in Pittsburgh by way of a pickup truck that Bill repaired for them. In order to pass through the city, Joel had to take a detour away from an old traffic jam. Right after the detour, they are immediately ambushed by hunters who ram the truck with a bus. As a result, Joel crashes into a small grocery store and is forced to fight back. After escaping, they make their way through the buildings towards the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and come across the abandoned Hotel Grand with a high hunter presence. Joel and Ellie then sneak and fight their way through the building to reach the exit.[22] The pair then fight the hunters present in the Financial District and encounter the hunters' Humvee.[6]

Later, they run into Sam and Henry, members of a group of survivors who were fleeing Hartford and decided to take refuge in the city. After taking out the skeleton crew guarding the bridge at night, the group made their escape. Traveling through a sewer system that was formerly a safe settlement and now littered with infected, the small group made it to a suburb outside of the city. There, the hunters again confronted the group with a military sniper rifle, and later the Humvee from before. The group successfully fends them off, but later was forced to flee from the horde of infected attracted by the sounds of the fight.[7]

Behind the scenes[]

  • In some concept art, a picture of Chloe Frazer, a character from the Uncharted series, which is another series of games by Naughty Dog, can be seen.
  • Upon first meeting Henry and Sam, Henry has assigned Sam to hold the gun while he ambushes Joel. This resembles a similar assignment of tasks between the man and his son in Cormac McCarthy's The Road, since the man would frequently hand his revolver to his son whenever he went a significant distance away from him.

Gallery[]

In The Last of Us[]

In Part I[]

References[]

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