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‘The Last of Us’ will film in B.C., but the game features these Seattle sites

April 17, 2023 Updated Thu., April 20, 2023 at 2:33 p.m.

By Dominic Baez Seattle Times

Bolstered by rave reviews and record-breaking viewership numbers, HBO’s “The Last of Us” was renewed for a second season after just two episodes. The post-apocalyptic thriller was an instant hit, adapting the 2013 video game of the same name into nine captivating episodes.

If the show’s second season sticks as closely to the video game source material as the first season did, we can assume Seattle, which acts as the main location in the video game sequel, 2020’s The Last of Us: Part II – and some of its landmarks – will feature prominently.

What you won’t see, though, are stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey filming in Seattle.

Instead, Season 2 of the critically acclaimed TV show and its fungus-infected world will be shot in Vancouver, B.C. Deadline first reported the location selection March 31.

We don’t know much about Season 2’s storyline yet (or when production will begin), but we do know that much of The Last of Us: Part II takes place in Seattle and the Northwest, with many familiar sites to be discovered and explored.

Here are some of the landmarks we might be able to expect in a Seattle-set season of “The Last of Us,” using the video game as a guide. (Warning: Keep an eye out for clickers.)

Lumen Field

Called SoundView Stadium in the video game upon which the show’s second season is based, this locale is modeled after Seattle’s Lumen Field, home of the Seahawks, Sounders and OL Reign. In Part II, the stadium has been repurposed as home base for the Washington Liberation Front, a community of humans trying to survive in a much-changed world.

Paramount Theatre

Named The Pinnacle in the game, the theater is modeled after the Seattle landmark at Ninth Avenue and Pine Street. This version of the nearly 100-year-old theater, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a bit of a safe space in the video game as you try to find shelter from the dangers (infected and otherwise) of the Emerald City.

Seattle Great Wheel

The 175-foot landmark looms large during certain segments of Part II, serving as a metaphorical jumping-off point for one of the game’s primary characters. The attraction, at Pier 57 on Elliott Bay in real life, doesn’t function anymore in the game (what with the apocalypse and the corrosive power of saltwater), but the time you spend there in-game leaves quite the impression – as long as you’re not afraid of heights. Look out for the nearby Seattle Aquarium, too.

The Space Needle

This one is a bit weird. The Space Needle itself is instantly recognizable, even though it’s covered in a dense fog in Part II. What’s odd here is the location: It’s on an island in the game. (There are in-game mentions of bombings causing flooding in Belltown and nature taking its course in what used to be Queen Anne, but it’s hard to keep track of that when you’re fighting for your life.)

Seattle Convention Center

It’s almost tongue-in-cheek that a video game would spend so much effort re-creating the freshly remodeled Seattle Convention Center (known as the Washington State Convention Center when Part II was released in 2020). The venue, standing at 14 stories high and totaling 573,770 square feet, plays host to major video game and comic book conventions (PAX West, Emerald City Comic Con). In Part II, you’ll find plenty of nods to that history, including stellar views of the skybridge, as you dodge cordyceps-infected creatures.

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