The Last of Us 2 has been one of the most interesting releases of 2020. Six years in the making, the PS4 exclusive has brought a number of game-changing features such as next level motion capture and detailed level design. Despite this, The Last of Us 2 has been at the heart of controversy mainly due to its narrative decisions, which has caused some unfortunate results such as review bombing.
While no number of updates will change the story's events, Naughty Dog recently released a larger update for The Last of Us 2, which included new features such as permadeath and grounded difficulty and a range of extra visual mods and filters. While this was one of the biggest upgrades the game has received since its launch, there are still some bugs and errors which could be fixed in future updates for The Last of Us 2 along with some requested features that would continue to enhance the game for players.
Invincible Mode
Accessibility and personalization features have been a huge focus for The Last of Us 2, with many of the game’s updates bringing advanced difficulty settings and other in-game specifications. Most recently, Naughty Dog brought in cheats that allowed players to further personalize their settings with hacks such as infinite ammo and crafting or one-shot kill options. But just as The Last of Us 2 offers permadeath mode, whereby one death ends the game, it would make sense for it to also offer an invincibility or ‘God’ mode.
It’s likely there are some players out there who would prefer to simply experience the story of The Last of Us 2 without worrying about the difficulty of the game, or there may be some who want to dive head first into boss fights without fear of dying. An infinite health or invincibility setting would cater for these players and offer an opposite end of the scale to permadeath.
Co-op
The Last of Us 2 often includes chapters where the main player has AI companions. NPC characters such as Jesse, Din,a and Lev are often useful in combat situations and for narrative prompts, but it would be a huge bonus if these characters could also be controlled by another player. The Last of Us 2 is known for being a single-player experience, but adding the co-op option would add that extra layer to gameplay without detracting too much from the narrative. For co-op mode to work, the gameplay system for companion characters would need to be identical to the playstyles of the main characters, Ellie and Abby.
Of course, then there’s the added challenge of how to run co-op in narrative chapters that don’t feature companions. But it’s possible that The Last of Us 2 could offer co-op play only in chapters of the game that feature two characters, or it could add a duplicate of Ellie or Abby for players to control in solo chapters. It may be a long shot, but turning companions into playable characters for co-op is the next best thing until the inevitable multiplayer for The Last of Us 2 is released.
More Weapon And Skill Tree Upgrades
One of the best parts of The Last of Us 2 is its New Game Plus mode, which allows players to keep the upgrades and weapons they acquired from their first playthrough and bring them to their next game. That being said, in a second playthrough it becomes relatively easy to fully upgrade all weapons and skill trees in The Last of Us 2 within the first few hours. This means players no longer have use for any parts or vitamins that they find during the rest of the story. A simple fix for this would be to add extra weapon upgrades or skill tree options.
Some weapons, such as the semi-automatic rifle and flamethrower, don’t have any upgrade options at all and are therefore perfect for a few extra mods. This is likely a more complicated process behind the scenes but would definitely enhance a second playthrough if Naughty Dog was to consider some extra tweaks.
Bug Fixes
Unfortunately, for one of the most technically advanced video games on the market, The Last of Us 2 still has some glitches. With so many moving parts behind the scenes, the game is bound to encounter bugs every now and then, but this is still frustrating for players. Gamers have reported bugs involving infinite falling, glitches when swinging from ropes, frozen animations in cutscenes, and companion AI getting stuck. While glitches like these are annoying, the good news for players is that Naughty Dog is continuing to roll out updates targeting bug fixes and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Player Statistics
With new additions such as grounded mode and permadeath, it’s obvious that a big focus for The Last of Us 2 players is honing their skills. While the game does have some viewable statistics, such as hours played, most of the time if a player wants to know if they’ve completed something they have to resort to the list of trophy achievements for The Last of Us 2. To streamline this process, it would be a good idea for Naughty Dog to implement a statistic tracker to help players keep track of their in-game stats.
Tracking the number of safes, coins, and trading cards found would be helpful for players, seeing as exploration is a key part of the game. Additionally, it would be a cool feature to see personal stats for numbers of kills, deaths, and weapon usage, for players who are interested in getting more insight into their playthrough.
Next-Gen Remaster
Releasing The Last of Us 2 in the same year as the PlayStation 5 means that Naughty Dog had to be somewhat aware of next-gen technology during development. The first The Last of Us game released at the tail end of the PS3’s run but then quickly re-released as The Last of Us Remastered for PS4 consoles. It would be a huge perk for the lifecycle of the game if it could be brought to PS5 consoles as well, potentially as a free upgrade.
Many games, such as The Witcher 3, have announced free next-gen updates for players, and hopefully, The Last of Us 2 will do something similar. It’s likely that the PS4 version of the game will still be playable thanks to the PS5’s backwards compatibility, but a dedicated next-gen software upgrade or patch would be ideal for The Last of Us 2 to truly take advantage of the PS5’s technology.
The Last of Us 2 is out now exclusively on PS4.