Like a Clicker in a spore-filled basement, the Last of Us Part II nears ever closer. But, rather than shake in horror, we’re getting more excited by the day. This is one of the games of this generation we’ve looked forward to most, and the seven years since the first LOU have seemingly dragged more than a Bloater’s right leg.
We’re sure we’re not alone, neither.
We will be posting our full, in-depth review of The Last of Us 2 on Pocket-lint a week before release. However, ahead of then, we can reveal some of our experiences with the game so far – namely during one of the missions that takes place roughly midway through the story. It took us two hours (actually, slightly more with a lot of exploring and cowering in corners taken into account) and we’ll attempt to refrain from spoilers as much as possible.
However, if you want to come into the highly-anticipated PlayStation exclusive completely fresh from any preconceptions, we advise you look away now.
If you’re still with us, here are our thoughts on the preview segment we played…
Darker, deeper, deadlier
For this mission, Ellie is completely on her own, searching for someone with essential information needed to progress her adventure. It is a lonely, brutal mission that takes in several key enemy types in the game.
Again, we have to alert you to spoilers, as this specific mission put us up against three different factions in total, and is a good one for preview purposes as we got to trial many of Ellie’s new abilities along the way.
First though, we have to say that The Last of Us 2 looks incredible – detailed, more fully realised than even LOU Remastered, and bigger in scope and scale.
Its HDR presentation gives the game greater depth than its predecessor, especially in darker areas where you rely heaving on your lapel torch. And weather and water effects are used as more than eye-candy – they add different texture to the game and, in the case of the later certainly, greater gameplay variety.
Audio too is exemplary. If you own a soundbar, home cinema system or devent virtual surround headphones, you get a visceral, dark score and spatial sound FX that are as equally important as the visuals. Like all good horror movies, the audio often gives you clues to what’s ahead, deepening the anticipation and accelerating your heart rate.
In short, even from just this section it is clear to see how much effort and love has been poured into the look and sound of The Last of Us Part 2. It is a cinematic experience that stays with you long after the TV has been switched off.
The same but different
In gameplay terms, it is great that LOU2 is instantly familiar. We recently replayed The Last of Us Remastered to completion and found it easy to simply carry on with the sequel. Even some original strategies can be transferred. However, that’s not to say there’s nothing new – it’s just that the latest features have been intuitively integrated so you can pick them up instantly.
Ellie is a different kind of character to Joel, for starters. She also has a different mindset in the sequel, being mostly driven by rage and revenge.
She is more nimble than he, with new abilities including slipping through cracks in walls or going completely prone. This allows her to move and hide more efficiently, becoming almost invisible in long grass and foliage, while she can duck through the tiniest holes.
The world has changed in the four years of in-game time and nature has largely reclaimed urban locations. This means there are more opportunities to keep out of sight of enemies when there is nothing else to duck behind. Ellie can even use weapons to snipe infected or human foes from the grass, such as with her trusty bow and arrow combo, putting more emphasis on stealth than ever before.
Indeed, we found ourselves sneaking around much more than in the first game. You can run around blasting everything, of course, but with resources/bullets so scarce, it’s not advisable.
Instead, taking out enemies silently is an essential talent to master. And, this time you have a permanent switchblade this time rather than a series of breakable shanks – so that helps immeasurably.
All other weapons we encountered so far are generally the same as before – although upgrades can vary more. And, Ellie has a new skill tree that allows for much more variety over the basic one from before.
Like Joel’s skills in the first game, you can add new abilities and modifiers through acquiring booster pills. But this time, there a much wider selection of abilities to learn, in different skill paths.
This allows for wider character development, to develop an Ellie that better suits your play style. Plus, with even more craftable items available to you (as you progress through the game), it feels less rigid than before.
Considering The Last of Us is one of the best games ever made, that’s some feat.
Friend or foe
As before, exploring every nook and cranny is essential, not least to stock your inventory up with items you’ll need during fights.
There were enemies at almost every turn in the preview mission, with a decent taste of each of the game’s new factions.
The infected are back, of course, but tweaked to provide more of the threat. In this section we encountered the always-terrifying Clickers, which can sense you in a more intelligent way, and improved Stalkers, that can now hide from your returning Listen Mode and sneak up on you when you least expect it.
However, neither were as unsettling as the Seraphites – a clan of religiously motivated people that mostly communicate through a series of whistles. If the infected are heavily inspired by zombie flicks, the Seraphites (or Scars, as they are otherwise known) seem to have come straight from movies like The Hills Have Eyes.
They are more proficient with bows and melee weapons, so provide a very different threat to the other main human faction in the game, the WLF (Washington Liberation Front). This latter group are heavily-armed military types – think Fireflies from the first – but this time with dogs that can sniff you out.
They all have one thing in common though: they all bleed. And gurgle when you rip their throats out.
Not for the squeamish
The Last of Us Part 2 is brutal – more so than the first, it seems.
Killing someone, even an infected, is a more tangible, upsetting experience than before, with extreme death throes and bubbling, guttural sound effects.
Stealth kills are particularly savage, with multiple audio cues leaving you in no doubt just how painful an ending your victim has suffered. But even a one-on-one melee fight provides a hardcore experience.
They have been greatly improved, with a new dodge mechanic that will even let you take on a Clicker hand-to-hand (for a bit), and end animations are naturally gruesome. Ellie’s is very much a kill or be killed world, after all.
Some might find it too much – even in our two hour play, we dispatched scores of foes of each camp – but Naughty Dog does something that very few achieve – it reminds us of the cost of taking a life each and every time. You never get used to it, certainly when fighting up close, and it always seems integral to the plot and setting.
We’ll no doubt find out more as play on – including context – but, as with its predecessor, it is clear that extreme brutality is not used a point scoring exercise in The Last of Us 2, nor is it simply there for the sake of it. It’s excessively violent for sure, but not without justification.