The Last of Us 2 is getting a big update on August 13th that brings with it some free content that expands on the game. Grounded Mode, which returns from the original game is the hardest difficulty to play on. Alongside that you’ll see a permadeath mode as well. With these two new ways to play the game will also be getting a slew of graphics, gameplay, and audio modifications.
Grounded Mode will offer the hardest challenge yet
For fans of the original TLOU game, Grounded Mode will be familiar. It is definitely the hardest way to play the game, it makes enemies deadlier and resources even more scarce than they already are. Plus it removes some of the tools that have probably kept you alive in other modes — like the ability to use the Listen Mode and it deactivates some of the HUD elements. Grounded Mode will not be an unlockable mode. Instead it will be available to anyone as one of the options available when starting the story. As someone who beat the original game on Grounded, this is not likely how you want your first play through to go.
Permadeath mode is something new. It is described as it sounds.. This is a custom mode where if you die once your game is over. It does sound like players will be able to choose to enable Permadeath in different ways. Meaning that it can be applied to checkpoints or on a per-chapter basis.
With these two modes, there will be two new trophies for The Last of Us 2. One will be for beating it on Grounded Mode, the other will be for finishing Permadeath mode.
As for the aforementioned modifiers, there are going to be some new visual filters to use. There are also going to be a slew of gameplay modifiers to experiment with as well as some improvements to existing options. Head over to the PlayStation Blog to see the full list of things coming to The Last of Us Part 2 in Update 1.05 on August 13th.
