Before players can jump into The Last of Us Part 2, they'll first be asked to pick from six difficulty options. While it can be easy to play it safe and pick the Normal mode to experience a balanced challenge, it's tempting to try taking on the merciless Grounded mode. This provides the ultimate survival horror experience for anyone brave enough to select it.
When choosing this option, enemies will be much more durable and dangerous, while ammunition and resources become far less plentiful. This will force the player to scavenge every inch of their environment to stand a chance. Additionally, the Listen mechanic is removed, making stealth a lot more difficult, and the HUD has been toned down to only show the bare essentials. It's an incredibly difficult challenge, but it's far from impossible. For anyone who is willing to try it, keep these tips in mind.
The Last Of Us 2: Every Type Of Infected & How To Beat Them
The Last of Us Part 2 adds new variants of infected enemies, but despite their horrors, there are some easy ways of how to beat them.
7 Hunt Down Training Manuals
Training Manuals Unlock Essential Upgrade Trees
Training Manuals are small magazines that Ellie and Abby can find during their adventures, and will unlock a brand-new skill tree for them to upgrade. At the start of the game, players will only have a handful of upgrades to pour their hard-earned supplements into. Rather than using them all up at once, it can be worthwhile to save them for when a manual appears. Players can then unlock some of the more powerful and important skills.
Luckily, there are a few that can be grabbed early in the story when Ellie and Dina begin their journey to hunt down Joel's killers. The Crafting Training Manual can be found on a shelf in the courthouse. The Stealth Training Manual is located near the gas station right after Ellie and Dina escape from the infected-ridden elementary school.
6 Always Keep A Smoke Bomb Handy
Stunning Enemies Is Incredibly Useful
Smoke bombs don't feel as necessary on the lower difficulties. But in Grounded Mode, where every enemy has pinpoint accuracy, they become essential for making it out of certain areas in one piece. Smoke bombs will stun both human and infected enemies for a decent amount of time. Not only can they be used to break enemies' line of sight, but they can also be thrown out if a group of enemies are blocking a path.
Molotovs can also be useful, but they're far more risky and don't pack the same punch as they do on lower difficulties. Smoke bombs, on the other hand, are reliable and can be the difference between life or death. Crafting them doesn't cost too many resources, so it's always worth keeping one handy.
5 Never Initiate A Gunfight
Stealth Should Always Be The Go-To Option
Nearly every encounter in The Last of Us Part 2 gives players the option to either go in guns blazing, or use stealth to maneuver their way around the enemies. Out of the two, stealth is the much better option in Grounded mode. It will only take one to two bullets to take Ellie or Abby down, and because the enemies rarely miss their shots, even peeking out of cover is life-threatening.
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Stealth is still far from easy with the removal of the Listening feature, so it's advised that players crank up their audio and use a pair of headphones to try and figure out where the enemies are. It's also a good idea to deploy a hit-and-run tactic rather than taking out multiple targets at once. The enemy's hearing is so good that they will immediately be able to tell if their ally has been killed, so it's best to practice patience to avoid anything going wrong.
4 Don't Wait For Enemies To Move
They Won't Move Until They're Forced To
Enemies will always be positioned to stand in the way of the player's path, and will rarely move out of the way until players make them. Therefore, waiting around for the enemies to disperse won't be a viable tactic in Grounded. Take the initiative as soon as possible to try and disrupt their patrol patterns.
Bottles and bricks are useful tools for distracting enemies, but another way of doing this is by killing someone and then luring their allies to the corpse. This will cause the enemies to scramble and spread themselves out when they are aware someone's hunting them down. This gives the player a little more wiggle room when it comes to navigating the environment.
3 Always Unlock Safes
Safes Store Essential Resources and Rare Weapons
Because of how difficult it can be to find some safe combinations, it can be easy to avoid them entirely. However, this can prove disastrous in Grounded, since they are as gold mines for resources and weapons. Considering how rare ammo and supplies are in this mode, unlocking safes is the only way to get a bulk of equipment in one go. They are usually placed before intense sections, which makes them even more useful.
There's a total of 15 safes that can be unlocked throughout the game, but players can find four of them right off the bat during the first day playing as Ellie and Dina. The most important one to seek out here is located in the Westlake Bank. It will contain a lethal pump shotgun, which will be a big help for dealing with the Scramblers later on.
2 Plan A Path
Analyze the Environment and Create a Plan Of Action
On lower difficulties, players will be able to get away with making up their path as they go, but this isn't as viable in Grounded. Things can go wrong quickly by making a simple mistake. Because of this, it's best to plan out routes rather than diverging off the path, much like how a lot of people plan out their movements in the classic Resident Evil games to avoid taking any damage.
The Last Of Us 2: Best Skills, Ranked
Skills could mean the difference between life and death in The Last of Us Part 2, so it's best to spend supplements on the most important skills.
Identifying which areas are the most spacious and where the most important supplies are will make moving around the environment far safer and a lot less risky than going in blind. By sticking to this plan, it also means that any deaths will simply act as trial and error to give the player a good idea of what to do and what to avoid while traveling across a specific route. Eventually, they'll know it like the back of their hand.
1 Use People As Shields
Protect Against Both Humans and Clickers
A neat little mechanic that the game doesn't make clear is the ability to take humans and infected as shields. This will automatically happen when Ellie or Abby grabs a person, but don't kill them straight away. This allows them to pull out their gun while holding someone hostage. This can be useful as a last resort against a group of humans, since they'll stop shooting out of fear of hitting one of their own.
Where it really shines, though, is against Clickers, the most dangerous enemies in the game who will kill the player in a single hit if they get close enough. Luckily, Clickers aren't picky about who they snack on. Taking a human or infected as a shield and then throwing them at the Clicker will distract them long enough for the player to make a quick getaway.
The Last of Us Part 2
- Platform(s)
- PS4
- Released
- June 19, 2020
- Developer(s)
- Naughty Dog
- Genre(s)
- Action , Adventure