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The Last of Us Part 2 : REMASTERED |OT| If somehow a tenner gave me a second chance at that moment... I would do it all over again

Bartski

Gold Member
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via: http://gangles.ca/

Wanted to share a bit of news about what I’ve been up to since shipping The Last of Us Part I remake in 2022. I’ve had the privilege to continue in the role of game director on The Last of Us Part II Remastered. I helped oversee porting the game to the PlayStation 5, including various technical enhancements and DualSense controller integration. We also added a whole slate of new features: lost levels with developer commentary, a guitar free play mode, new bonus skins, audio descriptions for cinematics, and much more.

The one that is closest to my heart is the new roguelike mode: No Return. I was the lead systems designer on the original The Last of Us Part II (PS4), so I was well-versed in our extremely robust enemy AI, terrific combat spaces, and a deep roster of weapon, melee, crafting, stealth and upgrade systems. In pitching this mode, I knew that we could remix these elements (and some fun new ones, more on that later) into thousands of dynamic combinations.

Why make a roguelike? We certainly took broad inspiration from the amazing games that have revitalized the genre in the modern era; some of my personal favourites include Spelunky, Hades, Dead Cells, Vampires Survivors, FTL, Cult of the Lamb, Prey: Mooncrash, The Path of Champions, and Inscryption. The sheer variety of these games proves that the fundamental roguelike concepts can be flexibly adapted to serve many genres, and to resonate with different design goals.

The particular design goals of No Return have been on my mind for a long time as a combat designer; in fact, I’ve written about them before on this very blog. In “Thwarting Boring Tactics”, I shared how Deathloop stymied my bad immersive sim habits by removing my ability to save scum. The permadeath aspect of a roguelike forces players to push through and improvise when plans go awry, emerging from the situation with either a memorable defeat or a hard fought comeback. The escalating stakes as you move deeper into a run create a thrilling tension.

Another major design goal was improvisational play (see “Intentionality & Improvisation”), which is a type of gameplay loop that asks the player to constantly make new plans on the fly. A roguelike structure supports this playstyle through randomized items and encounters.

Each character in No Return begins with a unique loadout, but the guns, recipes, and upgrades you acquire during a run are randomized. Because of this, players can’t always rely on their favourite standby items and tactics, and may instead be forced to equip a gun or crafting item that they neglected in the main story. The weapon may be unfamiliar or unwieldy at first, and lead to some spectacular failures; with luck, it eventually expands the player’s toolkit with a new option.

A similar dynamic is found on the randomized encounter side. The player may know one of the WLF combat encounters by heart, but the strategies become totally different with infected enemies in that space. They know how to fight the Rat King with Abby’s arsenal, but what about Ellie’s kit? We also have some small variations in certain layouts; the player may have to scramble when they find their go-to escape route closed off.

This philosophy also led to the addition of “mods”, which are random rule variants found on certain encounters. Because No Return is not canon, we had the freedom to experiment while eschewing the series’s usual groundedness. Some mods were designed to shake up the player’s playstyle, either reinforcing certain tactics (e.g. melee sets enemies on fire) or limiting them (e.g. long guns locked). Other mods create exciting new situations for the player to figure out: foes dropping pipe bombs on death, infected pustule clouds raining from the sky, or even (my favourite) invisible enemies.

As you can probably already tell, No Return was a real passion project for me, and I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to marry the excitement of a roguelike structure with the incredible combat mechanics of The Last of Us. I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction to the many new features in The Last of Us Part II Remastered when the game releases worldwide on January 19th, 2024

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The Last Of Us Playstation GIF by Naughty Dog
 
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Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Great OT. Absolutely terrible subtitle.

Correct me if Im wrong but if we're just doing the $10 upgrade we cant pre load right? Everything unlocks at midnight?
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Intrigued to play the rouge mode because I have been straight up addicted to GOW Valhalla for over a month and a half now. I have literally deleted it twice but keep reinstalling because id rather play GOW than anything else. Its a great combat engine set in the perfect bite sized content with all fat trimmed out.

TLOU2 had the same issues with pacing thanks to the constant walking sections, flashbacks and 'exploration' levels that didnt really feel rewarding. I hope the constant action does for TLOU2 the same thing Valhalla did for Ragnorak. Their combat engine is just as sublime, and it should thrive in a bite sized scenario.

The thing is SSM secretly added several new perks that really enhanced the combat beyond Ragnorak. I wonder if ND has added more perks like Abby Terminator Melee mode which was incredibly fun but not available to Ellie. I am cautiously hopeful but ND is no SSM when it comes to level and encounter design.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Worth the $10 for me just to revisit the combat loop in a convenient form.

Honestly, the worst thing about the game was always the relatively long load times on replaying a combat scenario due to the way they had to serialize everything for the campaign flow.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
The guitar simulator looks super cool with additional effects, reverb and the like. I’ll be spending hours on that.

Yeah Im gonna put that shit in Drop D and have Ellie jam out to some Tool songs

Sidenote: Super excited to jump into this for the umpteenth time. No other game does such vicseral, brutal murder simulation. It's a great stress reliever after a long day with douchey coworkers.

Naughty Dog really knows how to make beautiful exit wounds.
 

Pelta88

Member
Great OT but the title needs to change asap. I mean, 90% of the board wont understand what a "tenner" is.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Would've been cool if they threw in some locations from Part 1 into No Return

Assault or Hunted in that Pittsburgh suburban neighborhood 👌
 
To sum up (timestamp)



I'll get it for No Return but I legit have not been able to even tell a difference and this seems to be why.

It looks the fucking same to me. When I see "Remastered", I don't want to have to count the pixels to own someone with raw math to prove that it indeed is an upgrade.

What are they doing over at ND??
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
The free valhalla update for god of war ragnarok is better than the paid last of us 2 "remastered" update...

God of War Ragnarok on the PS5 costs $10 more than the PS4 version. If you want to upgrade to the PS5 version then you need to pay $10.

So while it's "free" for PS5 owners, it's not free for PS4 owners. This means upgrading on both games costs $10.
 

saintjules

Gold Member
I'll get it for No Return but I legit have not been able to even tell a difference and this seems to be why.

It looks the fucking same to me. When I see "Remastered", I don't want to have to count the pixels to own someone with raw math to prove that it indeed is an upgrade.

What are they doing over at ND??

There seems to be some slight enhancements as mentioned if you're under fidelity mode. I will once again test to see what I will prefer. Either 120hz + VRR perf or fidelity.

Using the word "Remastered" is definitely the dangling of the carrot here. Simply saying another PS5 update to include No Return Mode wouldn't have been enough to get a majority of players back in. I actually would have preferred them to say Director's Cut. And that's because you also include Lost Levels here.

All in all, two $5 bills for a true definitive second playthrough, with the new mode, levels, additional in-game commentary, performance upgrade(s), the pricing is more than fair to jump back in. But if it isn't, people should just skip past this altogether. That's fine too, but people don't do it quiet apparently. And that's overwhelmingly annoying part about this release.

Edit: I also think announcing the cancelation of the MP Factions game sells No Return, let alone the "Remaster" even more so. Apart from the show's second season coming in the future, there's nothing in the immediate horizon for anything TLOU related (don't think I missed anything that's upcoming). So most people will settle and pay the $10.
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
And we can’t even upgrade now. It’s so odd. But it’s been like this with all 10 USD upgrades.
yeah, just weird. You meet the conditions (installed PS4 ver or the disc in the drive) and that allows you to download a brand new app of 80 gigs for 10 bucks. Same one that unlocks on a timer you would just buy it digitally from psn.
But here for some reason you can only start doing it after the game is out.

It Is What It Is Sport GIF by UFC
 

angrod14

Member
- Bought the PS4 digital version on launch day through my older account.

- Bought the PS4 Special Edition on Amazon, because I wanted something tangible (selling it now, though).

- Bought another PS4 digital copy through my secondary account, because I wanted to platinum it again.

- Now I'm buying the full price, physical copy of this now, because I want to own the best version of the best game of all time, that no one can take away from me.

Worth every dime. This game touched my soul. Means a lot to me.

Team Abby bitches!
 
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Disco Dave

Member
I cant wait to see the Owen and Abby sex scene in the remaster. The graphical fidelity should be such that should be able to tell which hole Owen pops his meat mallot into.

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