How long to beat The Last of Us Part 1

Last checked: October 15, 2026

The Last of Us takes about 14 to 15 hours to finish the main story, with most players landing between 19 and 20 hours once they explore and pick up collectibles. A full completionist run, including every artifact and upgrade, runs closer to 27 hours. These are HowLongToBeat-style community averages for The Last of Us Part I on PS5 and PC, current as of October 2026.

How long The Last of Us takes by playstyle

We break game length into three tiers, matching how aggregators like HowLongToBeat report it. The figures below cover The Last of Us Part I, the 2022 remake from Naughty Dog published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. They are rounded community averages as of October 2026, not fixed numbers, and your own time will shift with difficulty and how much you scavenge.

The gap between the first two rows is the one most readers care about. Roughly five extra hours is what it costs to actually look around. The game rewards that by stocking side rooms with crafting parts and supplements, so a “story only” run also tends to be a leaner, harder run.

Online “rushed” times are shorter still. Players on Very Light or Light difficulty who skip the optional rooms report 11 to 12 hours. That is the realistic floor for a first playthrough.

Length by version

Three versions of the first game exist. The underlying level layouts are nearly identical in all of them, so the playtimes barely move. The remake adds load-free transitions and faster traversal in places, which trims a little.

All figures are community averages as of October 2026. The PS3 original runs slightly longer in practice because of longer loading screens and a slower checkpoint system. Remastered and Part I both bundle the Left Behind DLC, so a “complete” run on those versions includes it; the PS3 edition sold Left Behind separately when it launched in February 2014.

One thing the versions do not share is multiplayer. The PS3 and PS4 releases included Factions, a competitive mode that could add dozens of hours for people who stuck with it. Part I dropped Factions entirely. On PS5 and PC the game is single player only, so the completionist number above is the true ceiling.

Chapter list and rough time per chapter

The Last of Us Part I has 12 chapters. Pittsburgh is the longest by a wide margin, and the opening and closing chapters are short. Times below are typical ranges on Moderate difficulty with some exploration. Treat them as a planning aid rather than a stopwatch.

Added together, the low ends land near 11 hours and the high ends near 15, which matches the main-story average. If we had to point at a single stretch where runs bloat, it is Bill’s Town through The Suburbs. Those three chapters hold the bulk of the optional areas and the first real weapon-upgrade decisions.

Left Behind adds its own short chapter list: Back in a Flash, Mallrats, So Close, Fun and Games, The Enemy of My Enemy, and Escape from Liberty Gardens. The whole thing is a 2.5 to 3 hour evening.

What changes your playtime

Difficulty

Part I ships with six difficulties: Very Light, Light, Moderate, Hard, Survivor and Grounded. Each tier reduces the supplies in the world, so higher difficulties force slower, stealthier play and more reloads from checkpoint. A first Grounded run commonly pushes past 20 hours on the story alone, and Listen Mode is disabled there, as it is on Survivor, which slows every encounter. Moderate is the baseline for the 14.5 hour figure.

Difficulty settings are also modular in Part I. We can set enemy aggression, resource scarcity and stealth sensitivity separately, so a custom mix can land anywhere between the Light and Grounded times.

Collectibles

The remake carries over the original’s collectible set: around 85 artifacts, 30 Firefly pendants, 13 comics and 12 training manuals, roughly 140 items total, plus 37 optional conversations and a handful of shiv doors. Hunting all of them on a first pass is what pushes a run from 19 hours toward 27. Chapter select lets us mop up anything missed without replaying the whole game, and the in-game stats screen shows per-chapter totals so we know where to go back.

Permadeath and Speedrun modes

Part I adds two modes the originals never had. Permadeath mode restarts the game, the current act or the current chapter on death, depending on the setting chosen. A Permadeath run on a high difficulty can easily double the standard time because of forced restarts. Speedrun mode adds an on-screen timer that pauses during cutscenes and loads, which is the cleanest way to measure a true playtime if we want an exact number rather than an average.

New Game Plus

A second run on New Game Plus carries over weapons, upgrades and supplements. Experienced players finish NG+ on Moderate in 9 to 11 hours, since there is no longer any reason to scour rooms for parts. Full weapon and skill upgrades cannot be bought in a single run, so the platinum trophy path on PS5 assumes at least a partial second playthrough.

How long a platinum or 100% takes

The PS5 platinum sits at the completionist end of the table, about 27 to 30 hours over two runs. The trophy list in Part I does not require any specific difficulty, which is a change from Remastered, where Survivor and later Grounded trophies turned the platinum into a 40 hour job. The time sinks now are the collectible sweep, every optional conversation, full upgrades across two playthroughs, and the Left Behind trophies.

On PC, Steam achievements mirror the PS5 trophies, so the 100% time is the same. Achievement tracking on Steam also gives a rough “hours played” figure on the library page, but that number counts time in menus and idle pauses, so it reads high.

How The Last of Us compares with Part II

Readers asking how long it takes to complete “the Last of Us games” usually want both entries side by side. Part II is a much longer game, close to double the first.

Figures are community averages as of October 2026. Playing the whole series start to finish, including Left Behind and the second game’s story, is a 40 to 45 hour commitment at a normal pace. Part II Remastered on PS5 and PC adds the No Return roguelike mode, which has no fixed length and is where the completionist time balloons.

Does the length justify the price?

We do not rate games, but the time-per-dollar question comes up constantly in searches around this title. For the record, Part I launched at full price on PS5, 69.99 USD in North America and around 80 EUR in Europe, and at 59.99 USD on PC, with the Steam version priced at about 60 EUR in Europe. Both versions have been discounted regularly in Sony and Steam sales since. The game also appears in the PlayStation Plus Extra catalogue at times, so checking the current catalogue before buying is worth the thirty seconds. A 14 to 20 hour survival horror campaign with no multiplayer is on the shorter side for a full-price release, which is the context behind most of those searches.

A note on what “length” means here

The story is linear. There are no side quests, no open map and no branching endings, so the main-story number is unusually consistent across players. The variance comes almost entirely from four things: difficulty, how thoroughly we loot, how often we die on stealth sections, and whether we are hunting collectibles. A player who watches cutscenes and takes the game at a walking pace will land near 15 hours. Skipping cutscenes, which total a little over two hours in Part I, is the only way to go meaningfully lower without changing the difficulty.

FAQ

How long is The Last of Us main story?

About 14.5 hours on average as of October 2026, based on community-reported times for The Last of Us Part I on PS5 and PC. Rushed runs on lower difficulties finish in 11 to 12 hours.

How long does it take to beat The Last of Us Part I with Left Behind?

Around 17 to 18 hours for both stories at a normal pace. Left Behind itself is 2.5 to 3 hours and is included with Part I on PS5 and PC.

Is The Last of Us Part I longer than the original?

No. The remake is marginally shorter in practice, about 14.5 hours versus 15.5 hours for the PS3 original, mostly because of faster loading and smoother checkpoints. The levels themselves are the same.

How long is The Last of Us on Grounded difficulty?

A first Grounded run typically takes 20 hours or more for the story alone. Supplies are scarce, Listen Mode is disabled on Survivor and Grounded, and most encounters need stealth, so deaths and retries add up.

How many chapters does The Last of Us have?

Twelve main chapters, from Hometown to Jackson. Left Behind adds six more. Pittsburgh is the longest chapter at roughly 2 to 2.5 hours.

How long does the platinum trophy take?

About 27 to 30 hours over two playthroughs. Part I has no difficulty-based trophies, so the time goes into collectibles, optional conversations, full upgrades through New Game Plus and the Left Behind trophies.

Does The Last of Us Part I have multiplayer?

No. The Factions multiplayer mode from the PS3 and PS4 versions was removed from Part I. On PS5 and PC the game is single player only, so the completionist figures above are the full picture.

About the Author

Leo Brandt

Author

Leo Brandt answers the questions that decide if friends can actually play together: does the game support crossplay, between which platforms, is co-op online, couch or both, and how many players a session holds. Crossplay in particular gets tested against the fine print, since "cross-platform" on a store page sometimes excludes cross-progression or leaves out one console entirely. He also tracks how long games take to beat, splitting main story, main plus side content and full completion into separate figures so readers can see which number applies to how they play. Player-reported times are labelled as such and kept apart from developer estimates.

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