Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is one of the most iconic games of its generation, so can The Last of Us Part 2 really improve on it?
When TLOU first launched back in 2013, the game was met with critical acclaim and won multiple awards for its gameplay and its heart-wrenching storyline.
It’s heralded as one of the best single-player experiences available on console and it’s one of the many jewels in Sony’s crown of exclusives, which is why its sequel is one of the most anticipated games ever.
But will such big boots to fill, can The Last of Us Part 2 really stack up to its predecessor? And how can Naughty Dog actually improve on one of the greatest games of all time?
Graphics
The Last of Us bridged the gap between the end of the PlayStation 3 and the launch of the PlayStation 4, and it pretty quickly saw a remastered version launching on the new console to keep sales moving.
Despite the upgrade in graphics, there’s no getting around the fact that the original game is nearly six years old and was created for last-gen’s PlayStation.
There’s definitely a huge amount of room for some graphical upgrades – especially since it’s likely that the game is going to carry over to the unreleased PlayStation 5 at comes point.
From what we’ve seen of gameplay reveals, TLOU2 is looking like a huge improvement on the first game, so let’s go ahead and give it a big check in the graphics department.
Gameplay
Is the gameplay perfect in TLOU? No, absolutely not, but it’s pretty darn close. Melee can be very clunky at times, animations can take too long, and there’s sometimes inconsistencies when you’re in battle, but it’s a rarity.
The combat is definitely solid, brutal and enjoyable, and it’s hard to imagine anything other than a bit of tightening up and smoothing down for the The Last of Us Part 2. Is anything more needed?
Whether you played TLOU as a stealthy sneak or if you went all in with guns blazing, there’s definitely a wrong and right way to play the game.
Although the latter can be done, it’s usually best to sneak about, use easily-replaceable melee weapons and keep your ammo stocks high in case you happen to find yourself in a sticky situation (especially if you’re playing on Grounded mode).
Hopefully this decision-making when it comes to play style will carry over to TLOU2, as it means you’re going to get a lot of replayability from the title as you scale up the difficulty levels.
Enemies
The Last of Us was pretty limited when it came to enemy types. You had your rogue humans, your Runners, your Clickers, your Bloaters and Stalkers, but it really didn’t feel like we needed anything else.
The learning curve for kills was pretty steep – especially with Bloaters – and if you didn’t conserve your ammo you could be in trouble pretty quickly.
Still, it’s been five years since the events of the first game, and it’ll be interesting to see how the cordyceps virus has evolved in that time. Surely the infected enemies are going to be stronger and nastier? Will Runners still exist or will they all have evolved by now?
The gameplay we’ve seen of The Last of Us 2 so far seems to focus mostly on the human bad guys, suggesting Naughty Dog is keeping something under wraps when it comes to the infected.
Story (Spoilers ahead!)
As we all know, TLOU ended on a pretty sad note with Joel lying to Ellie about the Fireflies after he stopped their experiment to try to find a vaccine for the cordyceps.
His actions saved Ellie’s life, but it’s possible it came at a huge price. In The Last Of Us Part 2 will the truth be out?
There’s definitely a lot more story to be told here, but from what we’ve seen, the story is going to revolve more around Ellie and her relationships now that she’s a 19-year-old woman.
Knowing Naughty Dog, we can hopefully still expect a seriously impressive narrative experience, but is it likely to hold up to what we’re expecting? Well…it’s going to be tough, but let’s give them a chance.
The Last of Us Part 2 will be releasing in May 2020.
Featured Image Credit: Naughty Dog