According to a solid new leak, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s roguelike mode will contain at least 12 different levels. This information comes directly from the LinkedIn page of a former Naughty Dog employee.
First spotted by Twitter content creator Joanastic, the detail was buried in the job experience section of Colin Freeman’s LinkedIn profile. Freeman served as an Integrated QA/Developer Support at Naughty Dog and seems to have worked on the No Return roguelike mode of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
Freeman has apparently worked on 12 different No Return level layouts in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. His role involved creating and testing AI dialogue regions as well as testing extraneous audio regions (ambient audio, I’m guessing). But let’s keep the jargon aside.
The evidence confirms the No Return mode in TLOU Part 2 Remastered will have at least 12 levels, if not more. For a typical roguelike mode, this could translate to anywhere between 30-45 minutes of gameplay per level.
If this speculation turns out to be true, players could expect around 6 hours of grueling combat in the roguelike mode of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. This number could be higher if there are more levels in No Return, but that seems unlikely given the typical length of added content in established titles.
The screengrab shared by Sony in their announcement blog for the remastered game gave us a glimpse of the No Return mode. Among other obvious things, the image shows a survival timer in the top right corner of the screen. We could connect the dots and speculate that staying alive while the timer runs out allows you to progress to the next level in this roguelike mode.
TLOU Part 2 Remastered’s roguelike mode will be playable as Jesse, Tommy, Dina, Mel, Lev, & more unlockable characters. Therefore, every run in this new mode can be expected to be dynamically different as players will be required to switch playstyles depending on the character they choose. The developers have also promised “unique twists” and the ability to unlock more characters and skins as you progress through the No Return levels.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered will release on PS5 on January 19, 2024.
