One of the most celebrated video games of 2013 was The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog LLC for the PlayStation 3. The “survival horror action-adventure” was set two decades after a cordyceps-type fungus had either killed or infected millions of humans, with the survivors of the pandemic forcefully held in quarantine camps afterwards.
In the game, players take control of Joel, a black-marketeer who promises to help a fourteen-year-old girl named Ellie escape from their camp and find refuge within a resistance group known as “Fireflies.” Their journey takes them from one end of the country to the other, including one city not typically depicted in video games – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“When we looked at the journey across the United States, there were different cities and towns that we wanted Joel and Elle to go through,” Arne Meyer, community strategist for The Last of Us, explained to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We wanted to pick certain cities that worked. Pittsburgh happened to be one that some of the designers and artists had an affinity for. We thought it was visually interesting. Since it’s twenty years in the future and things are falling apart, we wanted to get the feel for the city. For us, it’s important to throw in things that people who are from the city would recognize, whether it’s landmarks or other subtle things.”
Pittsburgh landmarks are indeed visible in The Last of Us, from the city’s trademark bridges to the William Penn Hotel, One Oxford Center and the USS Steel Tower to Fifth Avenue Place. Although closely resembling these structures, however, there are slight modifications to their exteriors while their locations often differ within the video game from the Pittsburgh of the real world as well.
“You’ll wind up diving through some alleys and buildings until you find yourself on a flooded main street in downtown,” a user on Giant Bomb commented. “This is where the game deviates heavily from the actual city. Your goal is to make it into the hotel on the right side of the street. It most closely resembles the Omni William Penn Hotel, though it’s not really all that accurate in either the architecture or the interior of the hotel. The real hotel is on Grant Street, across from the BNY Mellon Building and the US Steel Tower. Grant has planters in the middle and there are big patio areas nearby. The street in the game more closely resembles Penn Avenue both in size, how confined it is, and its proximity to the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Also, you’ll see a sign that says Warner Centre. The real Warner Centre sign is a few blocks away on Fifth Avenue.”
Brian Taylor, meanwhile, lamented in Paste Magazine about the lack of Pittsburgh “branding” within The Last of Us, with advertisements for the fictitious Duquesne Cigarettes on display but a noticeable absence of the black-and-gold colors that defines the sports teams of the Steel City.
“This Pittsburgh has nothing related to sports anywhere,” Taylor writes of the video game. “Maybe that’s because of the martial law that locked down the city, though one would expect the local pride that apparently rebelled against said martial law would have looked a little bit like football fandom. It’s funny, isn’t it, how something so crucial to a place’s identity can be locked down with intellectual property law?”
While some gamers argued that The Last of Us did not go far enough in its depiction of Pittsburgh, another popular video game apparently contained a Steel City tourist attraction even though the game itself was set elsewhere. The locales within Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – a multiplayer first-person shooter featuring a group of counter-terrorists – differ with each online update, with the popular Zoo version featuring an aquarium.
In 2015, a user on Imgur posted photos of the PPG Aquarium in Pittsburgh alongside screenshots from Counter-Strike that showcased the similarities of the two locations, from the outside entranceway to the interior layout, curve railing architecture to hallways, and both the upper and lower levels. The comparison makes a strong case that the PPG Aquarium was indeed used as the inspiration for the aquarium of the video game, yet there is one glaring difference – the CSGO Zoo update takes place in San Francisco, California, as opposed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Last of Us was not the first time that Pittsburgh had been featured in a post-apocalyptic video game. In October 2009, Bethesda Game Studios released an add-on to its highly successful Fallout 3 called The Pitt that was exclusively set within the Steel City. “We hear from people who say, ‘Oh yeah, I recognize that building,’ or ‘I know that bridge,’” product manager Pete Hines told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette regarding The Pitt. “It’s one of those things that creates some sort of loose ties to reality.”
Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, approximately 200 years after a nuclear holocaust devastated the planet. Although Pittsburgh was not directly attacked, residents suffered severe radiation poisoning when the three rivers of the region became contaminated. Now an industrial town with slave workers, players of The Pitt are tasked with freeing the forced laborers.
“If you’re afraid of heights, beware of one particular climb in The Pitt,” Kevin VanOrd wrote in his review for GameSpot. “A seemingly endless journey up a precarious series of stairways leads you to a remarkable vantage point, from where you look out onto the decrepit skyscrapers and soiled smokestacks of post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh. It’s an impressive – and oppressive – sight, and it’s one of The Pitt’s highlights.”
Not sure if the sentiment is comforting, but it’s an intriguing notion nonetheless that even in a future world of devastation and mayhem, the Steel City still manages to maintain a majestic presence.
Anthony Letizia