The Last of Us Part II Remastered review

Gaming year 2024 begins with the re-release of one of the best and most scandalous games of 2020 - The Last of Us Part II. The editors of gg received The Last of Us Part II Remastered for review, which contains interesting innovations that will interest players who have already played the game and those who are just about to launch it for the first time.

The Last of Us Part II is an action-adventure game with horror elements by Naughty Dog, which continues the story of the first part. However, in the sequel, the authors took a different direction, which gave players one of the most brutal and depressing stories in the gaming industry. The second part raises the themes of revenge, loss, war, forgiveness, and more. And thanks to the dynamic gameplay and atmosphere, you are immersed in these events, experiencing all the painful and joyful moments with the characters and ready to go with them on a mysterious and dangerous path that will give you an experience that will not leave anyone indifferent.

Also, the Remastered version, after completing the main story, will offer to explore the cut levels, replay the game with developer comments, or go to the rogulike No Return mode, where you can safely leave dozens of hours of your life.

5 Reasons to Buy The Last of Us Part II Remastered:

1. You are interested in finding out the continuation of The Last of Us Part I story
2. Thanks to the new content, the game will have something to do even for those who spent hundreds of hours in the second part
3. You have always wanted a roguelike mode in The Last of Us
4. The opportunity to explore locations that have not been previously presented to the public
5. Owners of the PS4 version of the game will be able to upgrade for $10

2 Reasons Not to Buy The Last of Us Part II Remastered:

1. You didn't like the original The Last of Us Part II 
2. You don't feel comfortable playing games that are too violent and depressing

Quick Menu:

• What we learned after reviewing The Last of Us Part II Remastered
• For those who haven't played The Last of Us Part II
• Lost levels: exploring the cut content
• Grounded II: a documentary about the creation of The Last of Us Part II
• Guitar free play: a paradise for virtual guitar lovers
• How the developers used DualSense features
• Nice little things that appeared in the new version
• The technical side of the post-apocalypse is always of top quality
• No Return: the mode we need, but don't deserve
• 5 things to know about The Last of Us Part II Remastered

What we learned after reviewing The Last of Us Part II Remastered

After completing the game, I realised that the name The Last of Us Part II Director's Cut would be better suited to this version. After all, subconsciously, when we hear the word "remaster", we expect graphical improvements and that's it. However, The Last of Us Part II Remastered offers much more than graphical improvements, which in this case are the last thing to be mentioned.

Thanks to the cut levels, you are taken behind the scenes of the game's development and shown and told about the decisions made, the peculiarities of creating certain game situations and why some ideas had to be abandoned.

Special attention should be paid to the No Return mode, which is able to win the attention of even those players who are not very interested in the roguelike genre (like me). The effect of low expectations and a strong impression works here. And if you really liked The Last of Us Part II, then Remastered is recommended for purchase. After all, with the PS4 version of the game, the update will cost $10, and for this money you will get more than enough new content.

For Those Who Have Not Played The Last of Us Part II

Plot: The Cycle of Revenge

5 years have passed since the end of the first part. All this time, Joel and Ellie have been living in the quiet and cosy town of Jackson, Wyoming. In Jackson, you wouldn't even know that the world ended 25 years ago with the epidemic of the Cordyceps fungus, which turned people into zombies. The city's residents did their best to make sure that at least somewhere on Earth they could get heat, electricity, a comfortable place to sleep and food, and that children could play in the yard with their friends and go to school.

But to maintain this atmosphere, you have to go on patrols almost every day to find the infected and kill them. And one day, the main character Ellie, who is already 19 years old, went on one of these patrols.

However, this patrol changes her life into "before" and "after". The tragic experience leaves the girl with severe emotional trauma that she will have to deal with for the rest of her life, but Ellie is not going to just get over it and try to move on. She embarks on a path of revenge and travels to Seattle to seek justice.

The story of The Last of Us Part II will leave no one indifferent. The bloody trail left behind by the characters makes you think about many things in this life and teaches you to look at the world from different angles. Throughout the journey and afterwards, you analyse and analyse all the events you have experienced. And your soul is left empty, because the ending breaks you to pieces. You let all that pain pass through you and start to realise the value of such games.

And no matter how much you like or dislike some of the scenario decisions, you should always remember that games are art. And if this art evokes strong emotions, no matter whether it is admiration or hatred, then the authors have done their job. The game will not end up on the fringes of the industry, but will be remembered for many years to come and has already left its mark on history. And such projects often become the engine that drives the development of video games.

Gameplay: Never Boring

The gameplay can be divided into two main components: research and combat.

The first element was made interesting by the locations. Many places have secret rooms, safes, notes that reveal the world, and you want to explore post-apocalyptic America 100%.

For example, at one point in Seattle, we see a house, but the door is closed. However, near the same house, you can climb onto a truck, jump onto the facade of the house, break the glass and get inside, where several surprises await the player. And there is a lot of this in the game, although it is not mandatory. But if you play the game exclusively linearly and don't look around, you can miss a lot of the content.

But still, the best part of the gameplay is the combat. Almost every encounter with enemies is a kind of arena where we choose the style of passing. The variability was achieved thanks to Ellie's wide arsenal. She has pistols, a rifle, a shotgun, a bow, and more. You can combine firearms with Molotov cocktails, mines, smoke bombs, or a pistol silencer. All of these are created from resources scattered around the world.

You can take a bow, a pistol, create a silencer for it, and carefully eliminate targets one by one without others even knowing about it. Or throw Hammers into the crowd and finish off the rest with a rifle.

Ellie is also much more flexible than Joel. She runs faster, jumps better, and can also crawl, which further expands the scope for imagination. You can, for example, hide under a car so that enemies don't see you, crawl out slowly and avoid the fight altogether.

But the enemies in the game are not stupid either. They can walk in pairs, constantly change their location, take dogs with them to smell Ellie, and when they see something wrong, they call for help and become more attentive. And don't forget that, in addition to people, you will also meet with infected people, to whom you also need to find your own approach. And some moments with these monsters turn into a full-fledged horror game.

And to become stronger and more confident in the dangerous Seattle, you should find pills that improve Ellie's performance and special spare parts that can be spent on workbenches to improve weapons.

Thanks to all this, playing The Last of Us Part II does not get boring at all. The constant change of locations keeps you interested in exploring new places to find something interesting. And different types of enemies and their tactics force you to constantly move around, analyse the battlefield to find the right moment to gain an advantage and emerge victorious.

Lost Levels: Exploring the Cut Content

Now let's talk about the innovations that the updated version has brought with it. Immediately after completing the story, I advise you to go to the section with the cut locations. Players will find 3 levels that were not included in the final version of The Last of Us Part II. To access them, you need to open the "Making of" tab in the main menu and then select "Lost levels".

Before each level, Neil Druckmann, Naughty Dog's co-president and game director, will briefly tell you what awaits you. Each location takes 10 minutes to complete, and there are comments from the developers everywhere, which you can listen to to understand how certain decisions were made.

And the addition of these levels was a good decision, because you feel like you're being taken to the other side of the game. You are shown and told in detail about almost every element that the developers have worked on. You get even more immersed in the project, learn a lot of interesting information about the development, and at the same time, you can now go around telling your friends: "Well, they originally did this, but later removed it because they came up with a better idea."

Personally, each of the levels was a child's delight for me, because I had already seen everything in the game, and when you finally get to see something new after several years, you can't help but be happy.

And if you don't find the game authors' comments enough, you can turn them on during the second playthrough. To do this, open the "Making of" tab, then select "Commentary" and turn on "Director commentary". The only thing I didn't like was that the story commentary can only be turned on after the first playthrough. Many people will be playing the game more than once and these people are clearly not afraid of spoilers, so it would be better if this feature was available immediately.

Grounded II: A Documentary About Making of The Last of Us Part II

It also became known that a Grounded II documentary is being prepared for release: Making of The Last of Us Part II. In it, the team will talk about what it took to bring the game to life. The trailer makes it clear that the film was started in 2016. In addition to showing the development of Part II, it will also tell about the infamous leak of the game a few months before the release, as well as the influence of covid on the creation of the project.

You can watch the trailer (except for the Naughty Dog YouTube channel) in the "Making of" tab by selecting "Behind the scenes". There you can also listen to a series of podcasts by developers and actors discussing important aspects of the game.

Guitar Free Play: a Paradise for Virtual Guitar Lovers

If you really enjoyed playing guitar in the game, you can now do it at any time in a special mode. To do this, open the "Extras" tab in the main menu and then select "Guitar free play".

You can choose who you want to play as: Ellie, Joel, or Gustavo Santaolalla, who is the game's composer. Next, choose one of 6 musical instruments: 5 types of guitar and banjo. You can also adjust the effect pedal to change the sound of the guitar. There are 11 presets available, but each of them can be customised.

After that, choose one of 4 locations to serve as the background. You can also customise the background to make it more atmospheric. For example, you can adjust the depth of field or apply a filter. Once you have everything ready, play and have fun.

How the Developers Used DualSense Features

Naughty Dog, as in The Last of Us Part I, added as many DualSense gamepad features to the game as possible. The remaster now supports adaptive triggers. When shooting a pistol, you need to make minimal effort to press R2. But to shoot with a shotgun, you need to press the shot button harder. I especially liked archery. The longer the bowstring is stretched, the harder you have to press R2.

We also added vibration to almost any action the heroine takes: when interacting with objects, during attacks with cold steel or firearms, when you are attacked, during different weather conditions, such as rain or snow.

And although we have already seen all these features using DualSense in games, it still adds a new experience during the playthrough.

Nice Little Things That Appeared in the New Version

Other innovations include the photo mode. Although those who have played The Last of Us remake will not discover anything new.

The updated photo mode adds the ability to rewind the scene a few frames back. This is a very useful option when, for example, a character blinks his eyes. We also added a lot of settings with light and new frames to make it convenient to take shots for different social networks. So fans of virtual photos will have something to experiment with.

We also added new skins for Ellie. Now she can be dressed in a space suit or a T-shirt with logos of famous games such as Death Stranding or Mortal Kombat.

And in the section with concept art, which was also in the original game, there is an additional set called Extra, which contains 14 artworks, mostly depicting Ellie in new costumes.

The game also has a Speedrun Mode, which will be useful for fans of fast-paced playthroughs. It will help you to track your progress and achieve new results more easily.

All of this may seem like a trifle, but the more new things are added to a long-familiar game, the more you want to return there.

The Technical Side of the Post-Apocalypse is as Always of Top Quality

Technically, there are practically no complaints about the game. For more than 30 hours, I haven't encountered a single bug, not even a visual one, which once again shows how scrupulously Naughty Dog approaches the creation of its games. It's also worth noting that Remastered has three performance modes: 4K (30 fps), 1440p (60 fps), and a mode that removes the frames per second limit. But the latter requires support for a TV with VRR.

The game also became much faster to launch thanks to the SSD. On PS4 Pro, you had to wait almost 50 seconds to get to the main menu. Now you only have to wait 15. And to start the story, you had to watch the loading screen for another minute. Now it will take you no more than 10 seconds. 25 seconds versus almost 2 minutes is a pretty good result.

However, I also want to mention one situation that "broke" the game. The Last of Us Part II Remastered stopped working as soon as I got to the main menu. Reinstalling the game or rebuilding the console database didn't help at all. I spent the whole evening looking for a solution, but it turned out that the problem was in the language of my PlayStation 5. I had the Ukrainian language, and that was what prevented me from starting the game. The solution is very simple - change the language to English. Although Sony reacted quickly and released a pre-release patch, so at the time of writing the review, the game can be played safely with the Ukrainian system language, I couldn't help but mention it.

Incredible Visuals That are Already Hard to Improve

The developers have increased the resolution of textures, increased the level of detail and improved the quality of shadows. But to be honest, The Last of Us Part II back on PlayStation 4 was such a beautiful and detailed game that it's hard to tell the difference between the PS4 and PS5 versions with the naked eye. The snow-covered Jackson, the contrasting Seattle with its suburban wooded area and the centre that makes it clear what has happened to the world, and other places in the game were breathtaking, just as they are now. And that's why I think the updated version should have been called Director's Cut. After all, with all the new content that has been prepared for us, graphical updates are the last thing on your mind.

The Same Magical Audio

The game's audio hasn't changed in any way, but there's nothing to touch. All the characters, weapons, and environments sound great, and I'd like to mention the compositions. Most of them were composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, but some of them were also created by Mac Quayle. They are mostly quiet or dramatic, although there is also room for more tense and dynamic compositions. Each of them plays at the right time and successfully enhances the player's emotions from the events taking place on the screen.

No Return: the Mode We Need But Don't Deserve 

And now we move on to the dessert - the roguelike mode No Return. In case you don't know, roguelike mode requires you to complete a certain segment (usually a set of levels) without dying. When a player fails, he or she loses part of the progress (skills, resources, weapons), and has to start from the beginning. Also, to make the game more interesting, the order of locations, bonuses, and enemies changes after each death.

Key Things to Know

In No Return, everything starts with the choice of difficulty. Thanks to this, the mode will be able to attract many more players. Never played something like this before and don't want to die on the first level? No problem. Set the difficulty to low, master the mode, and if you like it, gradually increase the difficulty level and achieve new successes.

Next, we have to choose a character. There are 10 characters in total, but only two will be available at first. You need to win several levels with the available character, and a new one will open. For example, 2 wins for Ellie unlocks Dina, and 3 wins for Dina unlocks Jesse, and so on until you unlock all of them.

Each character also has its own characteristics. For example, Ellie has only a pistol and a Molotov cocktail in her arsenal at the beginning. Her unique features are that she gets 50% more power-up pills, can create new Molotov cocktails, and has 2 skill branches open, not 1 like most.

And Jesse has a pistol with a silencer and a bomb right away. Thanks to this, he can immediately create the same silencer and bomb and has a skill branch that is not available to other characters at the beginning.

Thanks to this, the playthrough for each character is at least minimally different, which allows you to stay longer in the game until you try to play as all of them.

After selecting a character, we get to the hub, where there are a few things we will talk about later, and a board where you need to choose the level you want to complete. There are 5 levels to complete, and a boss is waiting for you on the 6th level.

Each level has one of four modes:

• Hunted. In this mode, you are attacked by enemies for a certain period of time. The task is to survive.
• Assault. There are 3 waves of enemies waiting for you. You need to kill them all to successfully complete the level.
• Capture. In a limited amount of time, you need to kill enemies and open the safe and get a lot of valuable resources. If the time is up and the safe is not opened, you do not lose, but the level does not end until you eliminate everyone.
• Holdout. Together with your partner (bot), you need to survive the invasion of the infected. It is complicated by the fact that the partner also has health and his death is equal to a loss.

Why the Mode Does Not Get Boring

Also, some levels have modifiers that add variety to the gameplay. It can be a nodal filter, thick fog, or mines placed around the location. And these modifiers can make life difficult not only for you but also for your enemies. Once, I was almost out of health and ammunition, and the last enemy was still against me. I won thanks to the fact that he stepped on a mine that he didn't see in the bushes.

There are 15 modifiers in the game. Thanks to them, even locations that you have already studied thoroughly offer something new.

In addition to modifiers, optional tasks may appear during the level, which give bonuses for completing them. For example, killing an enemy in the head restores your health and replenishes your ammo. And sometimes these tasks can also save you. Instead of panicking to find resources, which are already limited, you just need to successfully complete one action and you're king again.

But it doesn't end there. No Return also has various challenges. Thanks to this, you have a certain goal. You're not just running around the arena and killing enemies (because that would get boring quickly). You're motivated to do it and given rewards, and it's hard to stop until you've completed everything.

Challenges are divided into two categories: character-specific and general.

For example, Ellie has 4 challenges: win two levels (for which you unlock Dina), fully upgrade one skill branch, kill 4 enemies with a Molotov cocktail, and collect all possible weapons in one go. The last three challenges unlock different costumes for the heroine.

General challenges are mostly related to mods and tasks. And you will have to spend at least 10 hours to complete them all.

After each level is completed, we return to the hub. There is a reward box waiting for us, where we get pills, coins, resources, and other bonuses. You can also use the shop and workbench. With coins, you can buy weapons, recipes, various upgrades, and items in the shop. And every time the assortment in the store changes. So if you don't have enough coins to buy a gun, it's unlikely you'll get one after the next level.

How It All Works Together

You choose a character and find yourself in the hub. You approach the board and go to the first level. For example, this is the Assault mode against people without modifiers. At some point, an optional task appears - to kill 3 enemies with different weapons. You have a pistol, a Molotov, and a bat in the arena. You complete the task, get resources, and go through one of three waves. In between the waves, you have a few seconds to catch your breath and run to a box that gives you items such as ammo and resources to craft items.

After completing the first level, you return to the hub. In the hub, you open another box that gives you pills, spare parts, and coins. You go to the shop and see that you have enough coins to buy a revolver and now you have two weapons. Upgrade your character and weapons and go to the next level. Next, you will find a conditional Hunted, but with a modifier where Molotov cocktails fall from the sky. And now you don't just have to survive for 2 minutes, but constantly manoeuvre to avoid burning up.

If you have successfully completed the level, you return to the hub and repeat the previous procedure. Now you select the level again and go into Capture mode with a modifier that slows down time if you kill the enemy in the head. And as you progress through the level, you realise that you can complete a new challenge for Ellie: kill 4 enemies with a Molotov cocktail and unlock a new skin. You successfully complete the challenge and win.

Then you complete levels 4 and 5 and face a boss, where you have to try even harder, because the last level is usually the hardest and you've come too far to lose. If you also beat the boss, you get your portion of the happiness hormone and start all over again to play as another character, complete the next challenges and get a completely new set of situations from locations, modifiers and other mode features.

We Play This for Sure

No Return is the most compelling reason to return to the game. The opportunity to play as new characters, different locations, challenges, modifiers, tasks, rewards, and more keep you coming back again and again until you've discovered absolutely everything. This is a great gift for fans, because after completing the story, you won't be wondering "what to do next?". You have the opportunity to stay in the game for a long time, get new experiences and impressions that The Last of Us Part II could not give before.

And when you feel like you've become almost an eSportsman in this mode, you can go to the daily challenges, where players from all over the world get the same character, set of levels and modifiers. And what a great feeling it is when you open the leaderboard the next day and see yourself in first place.

5 Things to Know about The Last of Us Part II Remastered

• The Last of Us Part II Remastered is the full version of the game for PlayStation 5 that players have been waiting for for 3 years
• Diverse gameplay and a dramatic story will not leave anyone indifferent
• Cut levels have been added to the updated version, to show players behind the scenes of the project
• Roguelike mode No Return will allow you to stay in the game for dozens of hours
• For owners of the PS4 version of The Last of Us Part II, the update will cost $10. For everyone else - $50

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