The Last of Us 2 Fan Spots Awesome Detail on Grounded

gamerant.com:

While The Last of Us 2 is not extremely challenging on its regular difficulties, as it allows gamers to focus closely on the storytelling, Grounded is a completely different story. Designed to be incredibly difficult, the mode is harder in a few ways — and one The Last of Us 2 player recently found a subtle way Grounded makes the game harder.

The more obvious ways that Grounded increases difficulty see enemies deal more damage, with many one-shotting Elie and Abby, and resources being extremely limited. Enemy AI is extremely smart, too, as foes will coordinate better and flank players constantly. They can also spot allies like Dina, with infected enemies being impossible to outrun and Clickers being significantly more difficult to stealth kill. Recently, one Redditor spotted a detail that many may have never noticed on their playthroughs, and it shows just how much thought Naughty Dog put into the game’s higher difficulty levels.

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Like other The Last of Us 2 details, some fans may have known about this feature, but it was entirely new to Reddit user DEMONITIZEDZ. In the clip, they are seen sneaking through a building, with two enemies lurking around. They get prepared for the fight, realizing their weapon’s magazine needs to be swapped out — though the reload process actually alerts the enemies. They then attack before Ellie is even seen since they expect someone to be there, showing just how realistic the AI in The Last of Us 2 can be on higher difficulties.

Considering that this is only seen on Grounded mode, many may never encounter this mechanic. The fact that Naughty Dog made enemies this much smarter for the game’s higher difficulty levels shows just