If you're curious to find out more about the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, then you may be interested in picking up American Dreams. The upcoming four issue comic from Dark Horse will tell Ellie's back story, exploring what it's like to grow up in a "postpandemic world, shuttled between military orphanages in one of the last remaining quarantine zones" in the country.

According to IGN, the comic will reveal how Ellie meets Joel, and it will "set the stage" for the story of the game.

"At first I was very reluctant to do anything like this, just because we're still developing the game," the game's creative director Neil Druckmann said. "There's a lot to be done in the game and it requires so much energy that I didn't want to be distracted by something else. At the same time, I didn't want to just hand off these characters and find a writer, find an artist and do this thing and just say it’s not canon. If we were going to do this, we wanted to do it right."

In order to "do it right," Naughty Dog actually incorporates parts of the comic book story back into the main game. "There are certain parts as you play the game, if you've read the comic book, you'll understand what Ellie's referring to," Druckmann teased.

American Dreams will release in "spring 2013," meaning it shares the same vague release window as the game.