‘The Last of Us’ set photo reveals major video game scene

Filming for HBO Max’s The Last of Us television series is underway, and previous images and footage revealed the very first looks at Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, then more images surfaced to show off the impressive world-building to replicate the suburbs of Austin, Texas. Now, an onlooker has captured the filmmaking crew on-set in Calgary, Alberta, in the process of bringing to life an iconic scene from the video game franchise.

Thankfully, fans living nearby (or lucky enough to visit the set) have documented the filming process, which is scheduled to continue until June 8, 2022. The image below, which was posted by The Last of Us Updates Twitter account and credited to u/atmosphericentry, substantiates a confirmed scene in which a truck crashes into a laundromat. The tweet was captioned, “I didn’t get a video unfortunately but they just filmed a scene of a truck crashing into the laundromat.”

If this particular scene is ringing some bells, it’s because a near-identical scene occurs in the first game from which the series is adapted. In The Last of Us, there is an instance where Joel and Ellie — in a cinematic cutscene — are ambushed by Infected while driving a truck. Shortly thereafter, Joel crashes the truck into a building — which the series seems to have chosen as a laundromat — and from then on, the player takes control to fight off the aforementioned Infected.

From what we’ve seen from leaked images so far, the live-action adaptation promises to be faithful to its source material, so worried fans can rest easy. The Last of Us series will star Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Anna Torv as Jess, Gabriel Luna as Tommy Miller, and Merle Dandridge as Marlene. Its first season is scheduled for 10 episodes, but unfortunately, HBO recently revealed that the series is unlikely to premiere until 2023.

To add salt to the wound, there is also no word on when The Last of Us will release its official trailer, but if filming is set to conclude in June 2022, the trailer might not drop until late 2022 at the earliest. Still, the HBO Max series looks extremely propitious, which should make the agonizing wait feel more worthwhile.