he game begins by introducing Joel, a single father living near Austin, Texas with his daughter Sarah. He comes home late one night, talking on the phone with his brother Tommy. He finds Sarah asleep on the couch; after waking up she gives him a new wristwatch for his birthday, and Joel puts her to bed after she falls asleep again. A couple of hours later, Sarah wakes up to a distraught phone call from Tommy, who is looking for Joel. She gets up and goes around the house looking for him.
The bathroom at the end of the hall contains a newspaper article dated September 26th, 2013 (presumably the day prior to this moment in the game), referencing a rash of infected people amassing at the local hospitals. When she goes into his bedroom, a live TV report shows the moment when a gas line blows up, as Sarah sees the explosion outside. After going downstairs, Sarah picks up Joel's cell phone from the counter and sees that he has multiple missed calls and text messages from Tommy. Joel suddenly runs into the house, very nervous and covered in blood, saying something bad is happening. As he picks up his pistol, his neighbor Jimmy Cooper breaks through the glass door and tries to attack them; Joel is forced to shoot him.

Tommy arrives as they run out of the house and starts driving away from town, commenting how people in the city have "lost their minds" because of some type of infection, and that the whole country seems to be going through the same thing. They find the road completely jammed, and after they see a driver get mauled in front of them they turn back and drive away but get hit by another car. As they crawl out of the wreckage they discover that Sarah's leg was injured in the accident, so Joel is forced to carry her while Tommy protects them. They run through the streets, now in complete chaos, and cut through a bar, where Tommy stays back to hold off the infected and says to meet him on the highway.

As Joel is being pursued by other Infected, a soldier saves them. He is then ordered to kill them both, most likely to prevent any risk of infection. He shoots at them as Joel jumps for cover, and Joel is saved as he is about to be killed when Tommy shows up and shoots the soldier; however, Sarah has been mortally wounded in the abdomen. She dies in her father's arms.