The Last of Us 2 Remastered's No Return Mode 'Not Recommended for Weak Hearts', Warns Dev

Might be time for a third play through to warm up for No Return mode 🤗

I keep on saying I wanna replay Last of Us 2 or buy the remake for Last of Us 1, but everytime I think about it I lose the motivation to do so. I still want to do so, maybe if ND announces LoU 3 I’ll play it again in preparation. I don’t understand how this remaster got so many people mad tho when it’s pretty much just $10 DLC.

Wonder what the trophy list is going to look like

Funny, I thought “No Return Mode” was the mode I was always playing in because I’m definitely not returning to play this game 🤮

@Deoxyr1bose I don't think those that are critical care about price. It's likely more to do with the fact that ND have really only released or even publicly commented on re released content projects along with the now canceled factions debacle.
Many of us buy into the PS ecosystem for the banger exclusive games and for a time an amazing diversity of games. It shouldn't be that surprising given the current trajectory of ND, and Sony at large for that matter.

Regardless of the framing, the reality is that these recycled content releases are greenlit because they in fact require far less investment much of which is outsourced and supported through AI to do so. Thus the profit margins are higher. This greed driven model takes time, time that could be going toward new experiences as well as takes slots in the hyper focus on optimal for profit and exposure release dates.

The remasterakes gold rush has greatly sapped creativity within the medium. Couple that with the often released alternative coming from Sony are just safe iterative sequels, and it's not hard to see why some are critical. Not mad, critical.

I think it's especially a bummer when you see truly talented studios being forced into projects driven overtly by maximal profit extraction. Often times at the detriment to quality, fun, and sometimes talent retention.

@KundaliniRising333 I could see this with Last of Us Part 1 Remake but not with this. It’s a simple remaster with a small amount yet interesting new content. It’s not like Naughty Dog chose to release this over a brand new from the ground up Jax and Daxter game. Remasters usually supplement output from studios making new games in terms of development time and effort, not overtake it.

@Deoxyr1bose I genuinely hope you are right and some other project is well along toward completion and it wasn't just factions and the re-releases they have focused on since tlou2 (3.5 yrs of which they are nearing their 3rd rerelease).

Playing a game like that for the "difficulty" is just so wrong and d...

I would have been interested if this had launched with the game or if it was free, but I have 0 interest in paying for this.

I’m calling that all this extra padding is for the unannounced PC version that will likely release mid summer.

The Valhalla DLC was great though.

On Meds for anxiety and palpitations, appear to by working great so far. Palpitations while harmless(as far as I know) can also be very frightening when they randomly happen from my experiences. Palpitations first happend to me randomly around 2019 with Days Gone when taking on one of the many hordes. Days Gone certainly isn't scary but it was the adrenaline and excitement in the middle of taking on one of these hordes when palpitations first happened from outta nowhere, scared the s**t outta me. While not huge on roguelike itself, it's TLoU so I'll battle through any stressful roguelike moments with joy

So let’s check out this comment section. A bunch of people being super negative, check. Some entitled dude saying it should be free, check. Some guy using “Woke” as an insult, check.

Classic PushSquare right here.

I’ve got a pacemaker so I’m all set to play this. I’ll be rubbish at it, but still.

I get the PS3 to PS4 remasters because there was no backward compatibility so it made sense.
But this? Remastering a fantastic looking PS4 game is everything that is wrong with this so-called generation.

Naughty Dog used to be the golden boy of Sony Studios but now after various high profile departures, Druckmann et al seem to be in charge of a sinking ship.

For £10, I'm definitely doing the PS5 upgrade. Looking forward to it

I hope Aaron plays this on the youtube channel with a heartrate monitor to see just how much it's punishing us

I'm going for the £10 upgrade route and I'm mostly in it for the main game. The extra mode doesn't really interest me. I'll try it, of course, but I'm mostly looking for the cut content and levels that have supposedly been added in.

@sanderson72 I don't really agree. You have to look at this differently.

I suspect this has a lot to do with PC. Naughty Dog released Uncharted 4 on PC a few years back. They, first, give the UC4 and UC:LL games a lick of paint on PS5 and ported their engine from PS4 to PS5 and sold it to customers, basically getting paid to port their engine. Then, later that year, released on PC, with great success.

So, next comes the TLOU1 remake/remaster. This time porting an older game from PS4, released before Uncharted 4, to the new engine and, again, later, PC.

So now there's TLOU1 on PS5 and PC, why not TLOU2? This was the latest and most up to date engine version on the PS4, the release pipeline now has 2 successful PC ports under its cap.

The main thing they gain here is another PC release and they then have both TLOU games on the latest console.

Finally, if there's any notion that Naughty Dog have been wasting time with remasters, think about the fact that it's very, very likely that newer, junior, team members have been working on this port. They don't need to develop a full game from scratch, they have senior team members who've worked on the original games to refer to for help. These junior team members get experience with the engine and release pipeline, plus credits in the game under their belt.

Plus, these things sell and make money. It's makes perfect business sense and doesn't look like Naughty Dog are suffering.

I think the problem may be the problem you seem to have with Neil Druckmann colouring your opinions of the company.

@Deoxyr1bose what gets me is that this project is being used to train new devs and get them used to how they do things at ND. People are acting like this is taking out of their main pool of devs working on newer IP when it isn't.

ND is still working on other things that are new and a lot of people seem to forget that. People also just like to have something to b!TCH about because it distracts them from their own shortcomings.

@ChrisDeku it takes all kinds, right?

Im actually ok with paying the £10 upgrade for this, I was wanting to play a NG+ anyway, so this will be a pretty nice way to play it.

@MattBoothDev Interesting point about the PC - hadn't really considered that.

I don't have a problem with Druckmann - I neither like or dislike him - I find it concerning about the amount of people who have left ND since their end PS3-start PS4 heyday. I only named Druckmann as he's the only name left there that I recognise.
You say that it doesn't look like Naughty Dog are suffering, but I would say that they are creatively.

@Deoxyr1bose I would buy TLoU1 remake right now if the price was reasonable. Even at a 38% discount its still above £40, that's just stupid. Agreed that at 10 bucks for the part 2 upgrade will be a day 1 buy for me though.

@sanderson72 the decision to have Naughty Dog do a "live service" game was definitely an odd one... Though it does seem as though order has been restored as they've dropped that notion.

@Icey664 As a complete mug who bought it for £60 on release, you are right to wait. It's not worthy of a full price release. The graphics were improved and the 3D audio was added and that's basically it. For a "Remake" they didn't remake anything. I was looking forward to the newer combat style from TLOU2. Naughty Dog said they didn't die that because the level designs didn't lend themselves to the style... Which begs the question why call it a remake if you're not going to do things like that?

It's good and worth the effort to play but you do right waiting for a cheaper price.

@Icey664 With Blackfriday sales it's been quite a bit cheaper already or are you digital only?

I have the original PS4 version and when clicking on the PS5 remaster I'm not seeing the £10 upgrade option. Only thing I'm seeing is it's £44.99. Am I missing something?

@Deoxyr1bose I think part of it is just an unfortunate side effect of Sony's new approach of announcing games. If you look back at Naughty Dog in the PS4 era:

• Uncharted 4 - Announced in November 2013, released in May 2016
• TLoU Remastered - Announced in April 2014, released in July 2014
• Uncharted The Lost Legacy - Announced in December 2016, released in August 2017
• TLoU 2 - Announced in December 2016, released in June 2020

Considering that games take around 5 years to make nowadays, Naughty Dog's next new game is probably a 2025/2026 release. In this case, under the old announcement approach this game would've been officially announced around 2022 so TLoU Part 1 and TLoU 2 Remastered would've just been seen as small side projects.

With the new announcement approach, if Naughty Dog's next new game is releasing in 2025/2026 it would be announced in 2024 at the earliest resulting in what you see now about Naughty Dog being seen as a remaster/remake studio.

I definitely think announcing games closer to launch is for the best overall though that setup does work most effectively when you have a very packed 1st party lineup like how Nintendo averages around 12 1st party games a year (Sony's average is much smaller).

@Flaming_Kaiser I always keep an eye out for physical and digital, but never seen it under £30, which would be the minimum for me to buy it for.

I was triggered by the announcement, but it makes good sense.

• It is brought up to best quality for new owners and people interested in getting every drop of juice out of the graphics
• The ND developers are learning how and creating assets for whatever comes next
• It 'tricks' another 10 dollars out of many people
• Maybe it even gets the scrapped multiplayer its time to shine as a singleplayer experience (and could still morph into factions 2 bundled with the next one

I won't get it personally. Haven't been interested in the update for TLOU1, as seminal as that one is.

@EfYI how is a $10 upgrade with improved visuals, audio, a new gameplay mode and cut content considered "tricking?"

You're actually getting something paying for the upgrade. Most companies would charge more than double just for the new roguelite mode.

@AdamantiumPriest it's not available yet, you'll probably get the option to upgrade when it is.

Guessing it’ll have a trophy.

@CharlieChooChoo

Let's say you are right. It ain't tricking.

@EfYI all it takes is a Google to see that I am.

@CharlieChooChoo

You lost me? I used "trick" in a soft/joking way on account of it being a recent game, but I don't know what I should google...

Only the main story had me hating the murder simulator. Playing a rogue lite adventure is more like an Uncharted adventure, killing is arcade like.

TLOU II is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to remasters and comment sections 😂 never ceases to p*ss off a certain kind...

@ChrisDeku LMAO it's amazing that even after nearly four years, the game manages to draw trolls from out of the woodworks by merely mentioning this game. You don't see me going to comment sections of games I don't like so that I can comment for the umpteenth time that I'm really not a fan of said game. But somehow TLOU manages to do that. Even the haters love it so much they can't leave it alone.

@ChrisDeku there's a slight irony here where you've become the arrogant commentor smugly belittling others for having an opinion whilst saying nothing of use and wasting their own and everyone's else's time in the comments section... so, check I guess haha.

@Old-Red by your own definition didn’t you just do the very thing you’re trying to mock? Bit awkward there, lad.

Looks fun and it was an easy platinum,.so id expect the same for ps5 list, or could actually require you to play on harder difficulties, take it from 3/10 difficulty platinum to 7 or 8...some parts of this game can be overwhelming..😱

@ChrisDeku ha, worth it.

Wasn't the last of us part 2 already on ps5?

Why is it getting an enhanced version already?

I could be really dumb but if it was... then why a remastered now, at least wait for the next console.

I mean, I never really cared for this series much anyway (probably gonna get ripped for this) but this is kind of just pointless

Nevermind, decided to look it up and apparently it wasn't on the ps5, ignore what I said... apart from me not really caring for the last of us, that's still true.

True if TLoU2 has VR support.
I will be buying the £10 upgrade but Why the hell they didn't take this opportunity to implement full or partial VR support is beyond me (same goes for Helldivers 2).

@Icey664 Ah ok I bought it at €40 i can take the hit on it. But everyone has his own price point that's quite admirable.

@Split0r Quite simple I see a lot of people who want it. The outrage of the Last of Us Part 1 was big but lots of people probably got it otherwise they would not have bothered with Part 2.

@Flaming_Kaiser
That's fair enough, but as I've already bought the game on ps3 and and ps4 at full price I'm not gonna do it a third time 😅

@sanderson72 They say it's so if someone is playing the TLOU1 remaster, there's some continuity to the look, instead of a downgrade in graphics when they start TLOU2. I mean, TLOU2 looked pretty freaking good on PS5, so not sure how much improvement there is, but the new mode might be pretty cool.