The Last Of Us planned story DLC about Ellie's mum

Naughty Dog once planned for The Last of Us to have DLC that told the story of Ellie’s mum. Oh, what could have been!

When the original version of The Last of Us was released in 2013, it was followed up by the quite brilliant Left Behind DLC. This piece of story DLC was also included in the PS4 remaster of 2014 and then incorporated into the PS5 remake in 2022.

Without giving too much away, Left Behind told the story of Ellie and her friendship with Riley, prior to meeting up with Joel and Tess in the main game.

Details on Ellie’s story prior to the base game and Left Behind are very vague. We’ve had tidbits sprinkled here and there, not only in the video game series but also in the graphic novel, American Dreams.

However, when speaking to Variety (thanks GameSpot), Naughty Dog president and co-producer of the TV series, Neil Druckmann explained that Ellie’s mother, Anna, nearly featured in DLC for the original game.

Before we proceed, please be aware that we will be going into spoilers for The Last of Us TV series. Consider that your warning, so here we go.

As mentioned earlier, while vague, we have been treated to very thin sprinkles in regard to Ellie’s mother. However, as revealed in an earlier trailer for the TV series, we do know that Anna will feature during flashback sequences. Furthermore, Ellie’s mother in the TV series will be played by Ashley Johnson, who of course is the voice of Ellie in the video game series.

In relation to the DLC telling the story of Anna, Druckmann said: “I had written a short story after we had shipped the game already. It was supposed to be an animated short, but it fell apart and didn't come to be. There was a moment where we almost made it as DLC, but it fell apart.”

However, when Druckmann mentioned the possibility of exploring Anna’s story in the live-action adaptation, co-producer of the series, Craig Mazin was said to be “immediately excited” about that prospect.

“We brought it to life in the most beautiful, poetic way, which is Ashley Johnson playing Ellie's mom and she was the original actor for Ellie," Druckmann said.

The second episode of The Last of Us TV series has already aired in the US and UK. This means that we can now look forward to episode three on January 29th in the US via HBO Max and then for the UK on January 30th via Sky Atlantic.