The Combat in The Last of Us Part 2 creates a unique experience. It’s often slow and heavy, providing a weight to every interaction that demonstrates just how tough it is to kill someone and how quickly things can go wrong. At the same time, it relies heavily on improvisation as you vault over objects, smash people with bricks, and bury machetes in guts–or just silently open someone’s jugular with your knife as you clamp a hand over their mouth.
Despite having a certain clunkiness, there’s an intensity to combat in The Last of Us Part 2 that many games never really achieve. And with the release of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, developer Naughty Dog pares back on story elements to focus on that combat in No Return, a roguelike mode that puts you into a series of random combat encounters.