The Last of Us: Part 2

The Last of Us: Part 2 — an exciting narrative action-adventure game from a third-person perspective with RPG elements set in the post-apocalyptic world of "The Last of Us." The events of the second part begin five years after the first and continue the story of Ellie, who has grown into a young woman and found herself in a brutal world where not only mushroom-like zombies but also humans pose a threat to all living beings.

Work on The Last of Us: Part 2 began in 2016, after the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. According to Naughty Dog, Sony allocated a lot of time for the game's development, with the studio doing 20-30 takes per scene to ensure everything turned out right.

The game was announced as a PlayStation 4 exclusive and maintained this status at the time of release, although it may lose it in the future, like the first part and some other exclusives of the eighth generation.

The second part of The Last of Us surpassed the first in terms of graphics quality, animation, and level design, with each aspect affecting gameplay.

For example, people and horses leave tracks in the snow, which can be used for tracking, but during a storm, everything gets covered. The events unfold over several seasons of the year in different weather conditions — snow and frost, fog and haze, rainy and sunny, with visibility directly affecting the characters' detectability.

The levels feature realistic patches of grass and bushes, where players can hide and sneak past guards. This is balanced by a new system of sounds and smells: one careless movement, and enemies (both humans and zombies) will immediately react to the noise. Characters leave a pheromone trail, which dogs and some zombies can easily smell, leading them to find the characters very quickly.

New animations contribute to creating the atmosphere in cutscenes and the feeling of incredible tension during battles — these have become harsher, bloodier, but are still based on pressing the right buttons. Additionally, characters develop bruises from hits, scratches from falls, and contusions from wounds.

In The Last of Us: Part 2, a character development system was introduced, featuring five branches: survival, crafting, stealth, accuracy, and explosives. New perks are acquired as characters discover various themed journals in the game world (somewhat reminiscent of character development in Fallout 4).

Each branch has five perks, which can, for example, speed up aiming, reduce weapon sway, and increase crawling speed. The system allows for the creation of different builds, changing the gameplay experience and enabling each player to customize their character according to their preferred playstyle, which is especially noticeable at maximum difficulty.

Through the developers' efforts, the game world of The Last of Us: Part 2 has become larger and is designed with a focus on maximum realism. Gameplay is still divided into levels, but the location design allows for greater freedom of movement, new spaces, secrets , and is enriched with numerous details and visual beauty.

"Verticality" has increased: characters crawl, climb, and jump a lot, advancing through gaps between floors, on awnings and roofs, using cars, cargo carts, and ropes to get higher.

The design of locations allows for running away, hiding, escaping, and using parkour elements, which will be equally useful for combat and stealth. The artificial intelligence of enemies has improved, they act together and communicate with each other, adapting to the location and the player's actions.

During the gameplay of Part 2, the player will visit many various places, both in terms of landscape and climate. The action starts in a small town of Jackson, in the center of the USA, where the journey of the girl Ellie and her guardian Joel ended in the original. Over time, the action will move to Seattle, an abandoned metropolis in the northwest of the USA, and Catalina Island.

At the beginning of the second part, Ellie is 19 years old, no longer a teenager, but a strong and independent girl, the main character, from whose perspective half of the story will be shown. Ellie lives in relatively safe Jackson, patrols the surroundings, searches for supplies, and kills zombies.

In Part II, Joel is not the second main character, as Ellie learned of his wrongdoing at the end of the original and was hurt. And although the heroes are not as close to each other as before, Joel occasionally appears in Ellie's flashbacks.

Instead, Naughty Dog introduces a new main character — a girl named Abby, a member of the militant group "Wolves," who unexpectedly encounters Joel and Ellie. Her story and the revelation of her motivation will take up the second half of the plot.

There are also several secondary characters on each side in The Last of Us: Part 2, each with their own stories and roles: Joel's brother, Dina's ex-boyfriend, Abby's friends, and her love interests.

Everything was fine until a certain incident, after which Ellie became embittered, consumed by a thirst for revenge, and set off on a long journey. As stated in the project's synopsis, before Ellie exacts her revenge, she must go through an "endless cycle of violence," accompanied by gunfire, dismemberment, and death cries.

The plot is deliberately built on mutual antagonism: the player's actions will generate hatred towards them and revenge in the future or are a reaction to revenge for previous transgressions by characters they hate. None of the participants in the game is unequivocally good or bad; each has a long list of right and wrong actions.

There are many antagonists in Part 2. From the familiar "Fireflies" from the first part, a militant group called "Wolves" has formed, which does not experience problems with survival or a lack of food or ammunition. A new faction has appeared: the "Seraphites." This is a well-armed and motivated group of religious fanatics who want to cleanse the world of all infected.

The latter also participate in the events of the game; they have evolved, and new, more dangerous and deadly types have emerged. According to the plot of the second part, Ellie and Abby are forced to confront two fronts — aggressive infected and hostile humans. All of this creates a sense of being hunted and constant danger (there are no safe places in the game at all).

The basic gameplay concept remains: exploring the world, searching for useful items, periodic intense skirmishes or the possibility of avoiding them by sneaking past enemies or zombies. Ellie is not as strong as Abby, so she relies more on her agility and cunning in battle. Abby makes more use of powerful weapons and often charges into the fray.

The developers have moved away from dividing the game into levels for exploration and combat, replacing them with small and large locations filled with enemies, infected, and points of interest. The player must sequentially pass through each level, adapting to the conditions, applying different tactics, and choosing different routes.

In addition to the gameplay innovations mentioned above, the movement capabilities have been refined: the character can squeeze through narrow passages, hide under cars, use melee weapons dropped by stunned enemies, and interact with the environment in various ways.

Open conflict is not the only way to complete the game, stealth movement has been significantly improved, even the density of grass and Ellie's position affects her visibility to enemies. The crafting system has been expanded and refined, with new types of weapons and ammunition introduced, and Ellie can craft many things on her own.

Gameplay as Ellie and Abby has become more intense than it was with Joel in the first part, and the developers thus showed the difference between the characters and encourage tactical play. With broad combat options, both in hand-to-hand and with firearms, players can devise various combat schemes.

The Last of Us: Part 2 will not have its own online mode like the first part, but will be fully single-player. However, Naughty Dog may release a team versus team online mode after the release, similar to the one in the original. Players will have to develop their clan, kill enemies in sessions, complete game tasks, and focus on survival.