After a long dry patch of news, Sony has promised to show off The Last of Us: Part 2 at this year’s E3. Few other games (if any) can claim to match the narrative depth and immersive game play offered by the original, so that sets the bar pretty high for the sequel.
What can Naughty Dog do to ensure that the sequel lives up to gamers’ high expectations? Here are the top 5 The Last of Us Part 2 wishlist features we would like to see.
5. More crafting options.
In The Last of Us, we were able to craft some simple weapons and supplies. These included Molotov cocktails, shivs, health kits, nail bombs, smoke bombs, and upgrades to melee weapons. But that was it.
In some ways, it is nice not to be overwhelmed with options, but it does limit combat possibilities and the degree to which you can customize your inventory to suit your play style.
Plus, this is a post-apocalyptic world, and you expect survivors to have to be clever when it comes to contriving improvised weapons and supplies. So it would be great if there were more objects we could pick up in the environment and combine in different ways to make a wider variety of usable items.
4. Puzzles that don’t involve water.
It seemed like literally every puzzle in The Last of Us involved water in some way. Ellie conveniently couldn’t swim, so it was up to Joel to figure out a way to get from A to B each time. This was interesting the first couple of times, but by the third or fourth water puzzle, it’d become all-out predictable.
Let’s have Ellie learn how to swim for the sequel, and let’s have a little more variety in our puzzles. There has to be something other than water they can come up with to present us with a challenge.
3. Less linearity in levels.
In The Last of Us, you’re basically on rails. There is usually one correct pathway you can take at any given time, and everything else is inaccessible. To be fair, Naughty Dog did a fairly impressive job giving you the illusion that the world was open, tangible and complete—but all too often you’d be reminded of the fact that you were essentially traveling through a sort of invisible hallway, even outdoors.
It’d be great if the levels in the Last of Us: Part 2 were more open and if some element of exploration could be incorporated into the game. Doing this while maintaining a fairly linear storyline might be a challenge, but it’s certainly not impossible.
2. Better AI for companions.
One of the most frustrating things in The Last of Us was when you’d be playing as Joel, and Ellie would decide to just blindly rush into the middle of a fight. This isn’t to say she wasn’t sometimes helpful, but quite often her attempts at “helping” just got her and Joel killed. Hopefully in the next game the companion AI will improve and we’ll see less of this suicidal behavior.
1. Keep up the compelling storytelling.
Finally, while all of the above points are valid, we are essentially nitpicking a near-perfect game. The number one thing we want from The Last of Us: Part 2 is simply a continuation of everything that the original game did right.
That means continuing with compelling, character-driven storytelling. Joel and Ellie felt more real and believable than a lot of characters in films and TV series. Whether Naughty Dog keeps the focus on them or introduces new characters, we are looking for that same caliber of quality in The Last of Us: Part 2.
With E3 around the corner, we’ll soon know a lot more about The Last of Us: Part 2. Hopefully some of these wishes will be fulfilled. Keep checking back with us for updates on The Last of Us 2 news!