The Last of Us is not your traditional Naughty Dog game. Going around with guns blazing is not the way to go about things. The controls differ, the enemies are unusual and there are some new mechanics that make this game a lot different to something like Uncharted. I thought a Last of Us Part 2 beginners guide would be a good idea.
When you first get started, the controls will feel a little off and will take some getting used to. Before you start getting your ass kicked by clickers or find you have fully run out of supplies and are badly stuck, read the sections below. This guide will help you get up to speed as quick as possible.
Stealth & Combat
The combat in Last of Us Part 2 will feel familiar to most people who have played third-person shooters in the past. It doesn’t mean you can go around blasting enemies. Ammo is incredibly short supply. You will need to conserve your ammo for times when you have no other choice than to use it. Here are some useful things to know about the combat system in the Last of Us Part II.
Press square to switch shoulders when aiming – When Aiming, press Square to switch which shoulder you are aiming from. When peeking out of cover, this can stop the object blocking the view from the camera.
Walking around enemies works great – You do not always need to fight. Many areas will give you a path to avoid conflict completely. Taking out enemies might drop loot, but you may also spend more ammo and health supplies trying to take them out. Sometimes it is easier to just sneak past all of the enemies, without engaging in combat at all.
Stealth kill clickers – They run fast and take a little more work to take down compared to regular enemies. They also take a huge amount of health when they attack. It is very easy to get killed if you startle them. The number one approach to taking them down should be using stealth.
Listen For Enemies – Pressing L1 will allow you to listen for sounds of enemies. This only works for enemies you know about. Any enemy that is waiting for you in some kind of ambush will not show up. Even with this, it can be very easy to lose track of enemies. This ability will help you find a safe space and see where all enemies are at once.
Finding Resources
Resources are in short supply now that the world has gone to shit. Depending on the difficulty you select, resources will be in greater or lower supply. Hard difficulty makes it harder by giving you a lot less stuff. You will really need to explore levels to make sure you collect everything you can to survive the next encounter. Here are some tips to get you started
Break Glass Doors – Smash glass using a melee attack. It will not impact weapon durability. You will often find items inside glass fridges and vending machines.
Safes have some epic loot – Keep looking out for safes. They have codes nearby and always have valuable resources inside. Some of them are hard to find but the main menu of the chapter select will let you know how many each area has. If you find a safe or a safe code, make sure you follow up on it. Check out the Last of Us Part 2 Safe cracking guide for more help on this.
Look Around before following story path – The game will often tell you where you need to go. For example, you might hear “we need to get to those stairs”. Often getting to these stairs will be a path you cant return from. Make sure you look around before doing this. There can often be a safe or other good loot nearby that you would miss if you just power ahead with the story.
Supply Stashes – There are a couple of supply stashes hidden around the game. Most of them require you to read notes or dig around buildings to find them. These contain useful supplies that will help you when you are stuck. You can use this supply stash guide if you want to make sure you find them all or need help accessing one of them that you have found.
Can You Increase Ammo Capacity?
Ammo is tight as hell in this game. You can store a lot of things in your bag, but apparently no more than one clip of additional ammo for any gun. With an upgrade system like this game has, you might be wondering if you can increase ammo capacity. The bad news is that you can’t. Ammo is going to remain a tight resource in this game.
The levels are quite good at giving you ammo when you need it so that you never fully run out but it will still be tight. It is best to go for the stealth approach over any other method.
Upgrading Abilities
There are a few different upgrade trees you will unlock throughout this game. At first, you will just have one upgrade path which you can view by pressing the touchpad and pressing R1 to navigate over to the upgrades menu. You will unlock new trees by finding training manuals. Most of them are easy to find if you just do a bit of digging around the areas you explore.
To purchase upgrades, you need to find pills that are scattered around the game. These are sometimes found as individual pills and other times in pill bottles. They are not hard to find. You will get them from all the normal places you find other supplies in the game. Places like bathrooms and a pharmacy might have them in higher amounts.
What Are The Best Abilities To Purchase
There is a very clear divide between useful abilities and nice to have abilities. Sometimes the really useful ones are blocked behind multiple other abilities that you don’t really want. It will always be a balancing act to spend the limited upgrade points in the best way possible.
There is only one ability to really focus on getting and it is the final upgrade in a tree. Silent takedowns are king in this game. Sneaking up on an enemy and pressing triangle to grab them before pressing square to perform a silent takedown
In the stealth tree, you will find an upgrade that makes silent takedowns 100% faster. This is hands down the best ability. The upgrades that come before it are also quite useful so you should try to focus on unlocking all of these skills as quickly as you can to make life a lot easier.
Control Scheme
The control scheme feels a bit awkward when you first play the game. I definitely found R2 a weird button to reload with. I got used to it after a while but still do not think it is the best layout. It is possible to remap the controls in this game. I have created a bigger guide going over this if you are interested in remapping the controls in Last of Us Part 2. I will say that the remapping system is not great. If you change all controls to be more familiar, GTA style controls, you will end up having to use the square button to shoot which is terrible. Reload is stuck to whichever button you use to fire the gun. These can’t be separated.
Collectable Items
The Last of Us Part 2 contains a couple of different collectable items for you to hunt for during your adventures. Generally speaking, these are optional items that you can search for if you wish. Finding them will not provide you with much of a benefit with the exception of safes.
Notes & Documents – These are scattered all over the place. Sometimes they have codes for safes, sometimes they have story hints and other times they are just random things that will help enhance the story. Finding these will not give you an immediate benefit.
Safes – These are a new collectable that does give you a benefit. Safe codes will be hidden around a level, usually within a note. Unlocking the safe will give you lots of great resources and supplies. You can check out the safe cracking guide for Last of Us Part 2 here.
Playing Cards – These cards are generally better hidden than the notes and documents. They will be found in drawers, on shelves or lying around on countertops. There is no benefit in collecting these.
Coins – This is a collectable item that will show up in the later parts of the game. They are more or less the same as playing cards but will be found in different types of places. Coins are often dropped outside and because of this, you will find coins in more random places than the playing cards.
