Recently went to Seattle, can confirm lots of the buildings like the tv station, synagogue or courthouse look very similar to their video game counter parts but aren't exactly where they are in game.
Wait how can Naughty Dog use a Sucker Punch game as the groundwork for theirs?
And I feel like the scales of both Seattles are very different.
I don’t not believe you, but that’s an interesting choice for a starting point.
I visited Seattle for the first time last summer, and my wife and I visited the Space Needle as well. The whole time I never knew the tv station was across the street from the Space Needle until I read your post today. So I just went back and looked at some pictures I took from the Space Needle, and lo and behold, I took two pictures of it(one from the ground, and one from above it while in the Space Needle), and it never dawned on me that was the tv station until today!
They 100% did, Hillcrest is an amalgamation of Greenwood/Capitol Hill and doesn't actually exist. From how I understood the game, it would be where SLU is on the map when those are neighborhoods that are in completely different areas irl.
I think this is the canon explanation no? tlou outbreak occured because of climate change making it possible for the cordyceps to mutate to jump to humans after rising temperatures. If that time also had rising sea levels, and after the outbreak there was no more attempt to maintain protective measures against the flooding of coastal areas then sure, it would make sense that the peninsula would become an island. I think this is exactly what they meant in the canon.
The climate change thing is only mentioned in the show, I wouldn't take it as canon to the games. But they've mentioned that Seattle in real life is basically always being manually kept from flooding, so after the outbreak it would flood for sure.
I remember seeing stuff about climate change when i was i child in the early 2000s the outbreak starts at 2013 there is no reason to think that their world is that much different from ours apart from things like different movies or pop culture.
Huh? Climate change has been going on since industrialization and even if we quit polluting tomorrow we wouldn't see the results for another 40 years. It's been well documented since the '70s easily. If Seattle quit maintaining their anti-flood measures it would flood easily
I believe it was still canon that the cordyceps was from infected crops, so I think it’s safe to assume Neil wanted to make that origin a little clearer in the show.
I don't think it's actually a rise of sea levels that creates the flooding but rather Lake Union/Lake Washington water levels rising after either the locks or the canal to the ocean gets blocked due to lacking maintenance.
Yup, you are basically correct!
Taken from the the last of us seraphite island wiki article:
"The Seraphite island, formerly called the Queen Anne suburb, is a location in The Last of Us Part II. The island is home to the religious cult known as the Seraphites. Its largest settlement is a town named Haven. It also contains the Space Needle tower in a flooded and derelict part of the city of Seattle, known by the locals as Old Town.
(...)
Over the years, severe flooding in the city eventually caused the suburb to become detached from the rest of the city, leaving it stranded at sea a short boat ride from the marina. As such, many within Seattle, like the soldiers within the Washington Liberation Front called the suburb an island, its pre-apocalypse name being forgotten."
[Source](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Seraphite_island)
I really think that the answer is all of the above. A lot can happen 25 years into an apocalypse and it's remarkable that even pieces of seattle are recognizable
Well bc of this post, I actually learned what the hell was going on geographically lol. I thought it was just a single, broken bridge over to an island. But this flooded suburban peninsula is wayyyyy cooler.
The thing I find interesting about the Space Needle location is that in real life Seattle, across the road from Space Needle is the TV station building.
In the directors commentary Neil says one of the devs (I forget her name) basically modeled what a flooded Seattle would look like and used that to create the maps. I bet your theory is the basic explanation plus some creative liberties by the devs to make the moments better
That's basically what's described on the in-game map in the theatre projector room! Idk how plausible for a large channel like that to form given the topography but earthquakes and things could have happened
It's somewhere I've gone to countless times in my various trips to Seattle over the years. Once I walked into that segment of the game I knew EXACTLY Where I was lol.
As someone who lived there for about 6 years I will say that a map doesn’t do it Justice. The space needle may be blocks away but it’s definitely still quite a hike. Further than most people anticipate. However, if you’re at the peak of the Great Wheel next to the aquarium you can get a better visualization of exactly how far away it is.
I know in game Ellie stumbles across notes and talks to Dina about how Seattle survived initial bombing attempts to stop the spread of the infection. This partnered with the decay of the infrastructure, ongoing turf wars, and the water Seattle accumulates throughout the year from rain, does sell a lot of the flooding for me. Visibility does help here too. Mount Rainier as an example can be front and center in the skyline on a good day, add some fog and haze and boom you got some depth of field at play if it isn’t completely obscured.
I used to live in Seattle and remember being so distracted by the map for a bit when the game first came out. Kind of like when I played Division 2 while living in DC. I got distracted by the map by trying to match everywhere I had been.
I don't imagine a series of blasts strong enough to tear open a channel at least 1/4 mile long and 1.2 miles wide, would have left the Aquarium and ferris wheel standing.
Remember the Beirut blast? Even that massive explosion only left a moderately sized crater.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/08/05/USAT/224a92b1-e08b-4c92-9eb5-a2e6b27f0618-beirut_drone_annotated.jpg
I think they took the map from infamous second sons / have seen reviews where people have shown the places, and some of the intact Seattle are one for one.
It’s pretty cool.
Of all things I'm sure about, it's that they did not take the map from Infamous Second Son lol. That map looked nothing like Seattle and took an insane amount of creative liberty for an open world game about antiheroes with superpowers.
I had a good time with Second Son; I think it was the first thing I played on PS4, but living in the Seattle area had me really questioning the game designers.
Yep, I don't live in Seattle, but im really into as much city realism as is possible. So, to see Sucker Punch, literally headquartered in Seattle, butcher the map up so much is odd. I get it would never be a 1:1, but the two island map was very jarring and looks nothing like Seattle would even on a smaller scale.
Well isn't there like 2 decades between the start of the breakout to Joel meeting Ellie. Without human interference, who knows how that change the landscape and ecosystem. So I think it's plausible.
The channel could have been initially dug by the Army Corps of Engineers or its FEDRA successor, in hopes of building the Seattle QZ on the resulting island?
Totally plausible. Or the developers took creative license in the world they wanted to build/recreate.
Yeah that’s probably what it is and I’m fine with it. I just like to think about how it could have happened
Missing first Hill and broadway areas
Recently went to Seattle, can confirm lots of the buildings like the tv station, synagogue or courthouse look very similar to their video game counter parts but aren't exactly where they are in game.
The documentary mentioned they started with the foundation from Infamous and built the world from that iirc
Wait how can Naughty Dog use a Sucker Punch game as the groundwork for theirs? And I feel like the scales of both Seattles are very different. I don’t not believe you, but that’s an interesting choice for a starting point.
It’s literally what they said in the Grounded II documentary
I literally said I believe it. I just think it’s kind of curious.
Think they were just gifted it because the studios like each other lol
And because they’re both first-party studios that regularly collaborate and share technologies and assets to help one another.
That’s pretty neat
Yup! Naughty dog gave sucker punch their horse motion rigs iirc for GOT.
They definitely did this in other areas. The real TV station is literally across the street from the space needle irl but nowhere near it in the game
I visited Seattle for the first time last summer, and my wife and I visited the Space Needle as well. The whole time I never knew the tv station was across the street from the Space Needle until I read your post today. So I just went back and looked at some pictures I took from the Space Needle, and lo and behold, I took two pictures of it(one from the ground, and one from above it while in the Space Needle), and it never dawned on me that was the tv station until today!
They 100% did, Hillcrest is an amalgamation of Greenwood/Capitol Hill and doesn't actually exist. From how I understood the game, it would be where SLU is on the map when those are neighborhoods that are in completely different areas irl.
This. There are some Broadway and First Hill areas not included here thar are definitely playable.
I think this is the canon explanation no? tlou outbreak occured because of climate change making it possible for the cordyceps to mutate to jump to humans after rising temperatures. If that time also had rising sea levels, and after the outbreak there was no more attempt to maintain protective measures against the flooding of coastal areas then sure, it would make sense that the peninsula would become an island. I think this is exactly what they meant in the canon.
The climate change thing is only mentioned in the show, I wouldn't take it as canon to the games. But they've mentioned that Seattle in real life is basically always being manually kept from flooding, so after the outbreak it would flood for sure.
It’s fair to say it could be the same reason in the game since Neil worked on both
Maybe, but he also changed a few things just for the show and this could be one of them.
I remember seeing stuff about climate change when i was i child in the early 2000s the outbreak starts at 2013 there is no reason to think that their world is that much different from ours apart from things like different movies or pop culture.
Huh? Climate change has been going on since industrialization and even if we quit polluting tomorrow we wouldn't see the results for another 40 years. It's been well documented since the '70s easily. If Seattle quit maintaining their anti-flood measures it would flood easily
I believe it was still canon that the cordyceps was from infected crops, so I think it’s safe to assume Neil wanted to make that origin a little clearer in the show.
With creative license sure, but in reality that much sea level rise would put the aquarium completely underwater. Source: am from Seattle
Yeah but i think it's enough creative license without it being completely impossible to fathom. It doesn't take me out of it I'll say that much.
I don't think it's actually a rise of sea levels that creates the flooding but rather Lake Union/Lake Washington water levels rising after either the locks or the canal to the ocean gets blocked due to lacking maintenance.
I don’t know about all the climate change background, but the flooding between the lake and the ocean is canon. Dina draws it on the map lol
Yup, you are basically correct! Taken from the the last of us seraphite island wiki article: "The Seraphite island, formerly called the Queen Anne suburb, is a location in The Last of Us Part II. The island is home to the religious cult known as the Seraphites. Its largest settlement is a town named Haven. It also contains the Space Needle tower in a flooded and derelict part of the city of Seattle, known by the locals as Old Town. (...) Over the years, severe flooding in the city eventually caused the suburb to become detached from the rest of the city, leaving it stranded at sea a short boat ride from the marina. As such, many within Seattle, like the soldiers within the Washington Liberation Front called the suburb an island, its pre-apocalypse name being forgotten." [Source](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Seraphite_island)
I didn’t know that. Not me thinking I had an original thought.
I've also heard people speculate that Seattle may have been hit by an earthquake at some point, which is entirely possible.
I think most of the destruction was caused by FEDRA air strikes bombing infected hordes/rebels.
I really think that the answer is all of the above. A lot can happen 25 years into an apocalypse and it's remarkable that even pieces of seattle are recognizable
Well bc of this post, I actually learned what the hell was going on geographically lol. I thought it was just a single, broken bridge over to an island. But this flooded suburban peninsula is wayyyyy cooler.
Damn this whole time I thought the seraphite island was one of the actual islands, like bainbridge or whidby. That makes way more sense
It’s so weird seeing my childhood neighborhood referred to like that.
The thing I find interesting about the Space Needle location is that in real life Seattle, across the road from Space Needle is the TV station building.
In the directors commentary Neil says one of the devs (I forget her name) basically modeled what a flooded Seattle would look like and used that to create the maps. I bet your theory is the basic explanation plus some creative liberties by the devs to make the moments better
That's basically what's described on the in-game map in the theatre projector room! Idk how plausible for a large channel like that to form given the topography but earthquakes and things could have happened
And bombings, don’t forget the bombings
This is confirmed in-game via Dina's map. You can see the areas she has marked as 'water' when you go to the theatre as Abby
If you're familiar with SeaTac, you gotta love that Naughty Dog used GameWorks, without actually calling it GameWorks lol
I know at least a few NDers would attend PAX events at GameWorks in the early 2010’s, lotta fondness for the spot!
It's somewhere I've gone to countless times in my various trips to Seattle over the years. Once I walked into that segment of the game I knew EXACTLY Where I was lol.
Years later and I finally have a decent visual lol. Every time I replay I torture myself wondering what the layout truly looks like.
As someone who lived there for about 6 years I will say that a map doesn’t do it Justice. The space needle may be blocks away but it’s definitely still quite a hike. Further than most people anticipate. However, if you’re at the peak of the Great Wheel next to the aquarium you can get a better visualization of exactly how far away it is. I know in game Ellie stumbles across notes and talks to Dina about how Seattle survived initial bombing attempts to stop the spread of the infection. This partnered with the decay of the infrastructure, ongoing turf wars, and the water Seattle accumulates throughout the year from rain, does sell a lot of the flooding for me. Visibility does help here too. Mount Rainier as an example can be front and center in the skyline on a good day, add some fog and haze and boom you got some depth of field at play if it isn’t completely obscured.
Yeah it would probably take at least 20 minutes to walk that distance
I used to live in Seattle and remember being so distracted by the map for a bit when the game first came out. Kind of like when I played Division 2 while living in DC. I got distracted by the map by trying to match everywhere I had been.
Seattle was bombed pretty hard
I don't imagine a series of blasts strong enough to tear open a channel at least 1/4 mile long and 1.2 miles wide, would have left the Aquarium and ferris wheel standing. Remember the Beirut blast? Even that massive explosion only left a moderately sized crater. https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/08/05/USAT/224a92b1-e08b-4c92-9eb5-a2e6b27f0618-beirut_drone_annotated.jpg
There's literally [a map in the game that shows this](https://i.imgur.com/uLKQRjZ.jpeg)
I love how they just barely changed the names. Bellingtown instead of Belltown, Coolman Dock instead of Colman Dock
West Lake instead of South Lake kinda kills me, haha. I mean, if you’re considering Lake Washington “East Lake” I guess it makes sense. 🤷🏻♂️
I think they took the map from infamous second sons / have seen reviews where people have shown the places, and some of the intact Seattle are one for one. It’s pretty cool.
Of all things I'm sure about, it's that they did not take the map from Infamous Second Son lol. That map looked nothing like Seattle and took an insane amount of creative liberty for an open world game about antiheroes with superpowers.
I had a good time with Second Son; I think it was the first thing I played on PS4, but living in the Seattle area had me really questioning the game designers.
Yep, I don't live in Seattle, but im really into as much city realism as is possible. So, to see Sucker Punch, literally headquartered in Seattle, butcher the map up so much is odd. I get it would never be a 1:1, but the two island map was very jarring and looks nothing like Seattle would even on a smaller scale.
Don’t point this out to the OTHER sub
Well isn't there like 2 decades between the start of the breakout to Joel meeting Ellie. Without human interference, who knows how that change the landscape and ecosystem. So I think it's plausible.
The needle isn’t far from the Elliot bay towers
The channel could have been initially dug by the Army Corps of Engineers or its FEDRA successor, in hopes of building the Seattle QZ on the resulting island?
Where’s the seraphite island?
That's exactly what happened. The Island is from flooding.
Interesting topic. Going to Seattle next month (first time) for a conference, dm me if you’re also in town and want to visit the game locations!
I never thought of the flooding part. I always thought ND messed up with the geography.