The Last of Us Part 2 Trophies Reveal Upcoming Grounded Difficulty, Permadeath Mode

The Last of Us Part 2 might still have some more updates in store. An update to the game's trophies last night indicates some new modes are coming to the game, including a permadeath option and the return of Grounded difficulty.

Last night, The Last of Us Part 2's PlayStation trophies were updated, and a few new entries were spotted and recorded (via Polygon). The first is Grounded Mode: a special difficulty that returns from the first game. In the first Last of Us, Grounded buffed up enemy damage, took away user-warning elements like the UI and the Listen tool, gave you fewer checkpoints and keep supplies scarce.

That's already fearsome enough, but tie it in with permadeath options, which would feasibly mean you get one life to live in a playthrough, and you're looking at a very challenging run through The Last of Us Part 2. It's a fair way to keep the replay value high for a single-player game, especially given the lack of multiplayer this time around. Still, you do get trophies for it, and if I've learned anything from watching achievement hunters and trophy collectors, it's that no mountain is too tall and no mode too excruciating.

The Last of Us Part 2 is one of the year's biggest blockbusters, so it makes sense that Naughty Dog and Sony would find ways of giving it a little support before the new console generation starts up. We certainly found it engaging, both praising it in our review and awarding it our June Game of the Month award.

Though director Neil Druckmann says that The Last of Us Part 2 won't be getting any DLC, I suppose a modest mode update is different enough. It's a nice way of reminding folks to pick it up and play one more time, or potentially a more challenging way to play it again on the PlayStation 5, if it's one of the backward compatible games for the new system.