Last of Us Part 2 – How to Change Difficulty

One of the best things about The Last of Us Part 2 is that none of its Trophies or other features requires you to play at a certain difficulty level. Combine this with some of the most robust difficulty options in any video game, and you can pretty much perfectly tailor the experience to your tastes. Do you want overly aggressive enemies that don’t deal too much damage? Done. Just want to stick with the main challenge modes, but move it up and down as needed? You can do that. And to explain, here’s how to change difficulty in The Last of Us Part 2.

How to Change Difficulty

Let’s start with the easy stuff. The Last of Us Part 2 features a bunch of challenge levels ranging from Very Light to Grounded (which is added via an update). These are all controlled in the Options and Difficulty menu, so head there first. This is separated different sections which can be dialed up or down based on what you prefer. Setting the main Challenge level will alter all the sub options below it, so if you just want one of the default choices you can change it here.

Alternatively you can modify each section to your liking, setting Player options, which controls checkpoint frequency and damage taken from attacks, to a light option while Enemies, which decides their behavior in many ways, to Survivor, just as an example. Mix and match as much as you would like, as none of this will impact Trophies, only the actual gameplay experience.

On top of this are the Accessibility options, which are truly impressive. The Last of Us Part 2 basically lets you reshape the game as much as you would like, making enemies and collectibles easier to spot, or making Ellie invisible while prone. Head back to the Options menu and select Accessibility to browse these. There are far too many to explain them all, but explore the Navigation and Traversal and Combat Accessibility sections if you want to alter the main gameplay.

Mess around with these until you find what works best and you’ll be all set in terms of how to change difficulty in The Last of Us Part 2.