The Last of Us Part II is finally out tomorrow. There’s a number of new gameplay features in the game and whilst the gameplay is fairly straight forward, there are definitely a few tips that you should know in order to survive the world.
SEARCH EVERY ROOM AND DOUBLE CHECK EVERY CORNER
Whilst you should be scouting every room for supplies to craft health kits and throwables, it’s more important than ever to explore every nook and cranny in The Last of Us Part II. There are a lot more houses and areas to explore in this game and you’ll pick up things such as new weapons, skill trees (there’s five in total), and holsters (for short and long guns). These are very missable and you’ll often have to crawl under or over places that you think aren’t accessible but they definitely are.
UPGRADE LISTEN MODE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
You’ll be able to upgrade listen mode in each of the five skill trees, and it’s well worth upgrading as soon as possible. As with the last game, you’ll use listen mode to look into every room before you enter, but it’s more important than ever in this game to use it. With Clickers and Runners being more feisty than ever, and a few new Infected for you to battle, you’ll be able to decide whether to enter rooms based on the craftables that you currently have in your inventory.
WHEN IN DANGER RUN
One of the most effective strategies that I found when playing the game is to not always take on every fight head-on. There will be many times where you’ll have lots of enemies running at you at once, and you can definitely try and fight them with melee weapons or shoot your way out of it, but I learned as I played on that the best thing to actually do is get your distance and either hide, take cover or get height and then toss a throwable or go for the headshot.
USE THROWABLES AGAINST SHAMBLERS AND CLICKERS
I’ve mentioned this a few times already but I can’t overstate enough how important Molotovs and Smoke Bombs are against Clickers and Shamblers. Shamblers are a new infected in the game (that we’ve seen in many trailers) and are constantly throwing toxins at you and will also explode as they die, so it’s important to keep your distance. There’s nothing more satisfying than burning a group of Clickers to the ground with a Molotov.
DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO KILL EVERY ENEMY
This is something else that I realised a good way through the game. You don’t actually need to compete in every firefight with WLF and the Seraphite. Quite often you can just run away and get that through the portion of the game and trigger the next cutscene or climb the nearest fence into the nearest area. Obviously, you might miss out on some collectibles.
STAY PRONE FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE
The stealth in The Last of Us Part II is absolutely fantastic. For some of the open areas such as Hillcrest and Seattle, I’d highly recommend trying to attempt to take out enemies stealth style as much as possible. There’s nothing more satisfying than taking out enemies with a silenced pistol, or tossing Molotivs/Smoke bombs into enemies as you lay prone with enemies unaware of where you are.
DODGE, DODGE, AND DODGE AGAIN
Something new to The Last of Us Part II is the dodge and it’s the most useful thing you’ll use in combat. You can dodge both Runners, the WLF, and Seraphites when engaging in melee combat and timing it is the difference between surviving and having a one-hit death by a nailed piece of wood. It’s something you’ll need to get down fairly quickly, and if you’re taking one or two enemies (rather than a horde), you can easily melee them and choke them out.
READ ALL THE NOTES
The Last of Us Part II’s best moments are where you’re alone in a building or house. There’s a story to almost every location in this game. Often you’ll read notes from loved ones, just before or after taking them out in infected form. It tells a really bleak story and you actually feel for these families that have gone out in this world in the worst possible way.
CHECK ALL THE ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES
There are some great accessibility features for those that need them, but it’s something that every gamer should look at. Being able to customise controls, or change A.I intelligence are both great, but you’re also able to turn things on like a blinker that tells you where collectibles are in the game. You can find our guides for both the Coins and Trading cards (and many others) HERE.
