Enemy of my enemy. Details and easter eggs of The Last of Us 2
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If I were to point to one aspect of The Last of Us: Part II, in which attention to detail is most impressive, it would be the enemies we encounter in the game. Naughty Dog made sure there's a difference between clickers and human opponents, providing the latter with appropriate depth, so that we don't treat them like typical cannon fodder, but rather real human beings.
The most noticeable attempt to achieve this effect was giving all the opponents their names – when the hostile human factions communicate during a fight, they use their own names, loudly shouting out the names of their dead comrades if they find a body, for example. The names of individual characters is not chosen at random (which would be the simplest and least expensive solution for the developers) – rather, each opponent "exists" within the world, is named individually, and we may encounter them in the same place on subsequent approaches to the game. When the narrative switches protagonists, we may identify the same individuals, who are, of course, our allies.
Opponents have high intelligence, which is especially evident at higher levels of difficulty – they eagerly flank a player, cover each other, search the area if they notice something disturbing. Our enemies will also behave differently if they're wounded or alone – they may ask us for mercy or demand quick death. Mercy usually sneaks up on you – if we spare the opponent, they will most likely attack us in the future.
Enemies are truly creatures of flesh and blood, as evidenced by the ability to chop their bodies up in pretty gore fights. Broken arms and legs, or heads exploding after shot-gun headshots are just a beginning. If we break a bottle on someone's head, there's a good chance that shards of glass will get stuck in their face.
I do not recommend looking at the walls with the brains of our victims sprayed all over – headshots leave an unsettlingly detailed pulp, in addition to bloodstains. A heavy blow with a blunt weapon results in knocking teeth out – during normal play, it may be difficult to notice that, but this is what the photo mode is for. Even the pools of blood are actual liquid objects, and walking in them means leaving bloody footprints. Blood also behaves differently on a dry surface, and differently when it interacts with other liquids, with which it realistically mixes.
Fury's best friend
The animals in The Last Of Us: Part II have also been prepared with numerous interesting details. Dogs are very intelligent, and apart from obeying orders, they can also independently catch our scent (you can also try to distract and fool them, of course). Animals are very attached to their handlers – if we kill the person holding the leash, then the dog will start rubbing its body with its mouth and whimper with sadness. A sad sight.
Like humans, the dogs appearing in the game have names that we can hear from their owners. And as with humans, they are not randomly assigned. The same animal responding to the same name can be encountered at two chronological points in the story.
At the Wolf base, we're in a pen at one point, where we can play with a dog. We can play fetch with it using a ball. However, if we accidentally throw the toy out of the pen (or because we are soulless monsters), the animal will sit where the ball has left the pen and remain there.
A lot of attention has also been paid to the mare Ellie is riding. If we carefully watch the horse, we will notice that it randomly drinks water. We can also notice a difference in the way Ellie rides between The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2. In the original, she used the more formal, English riding position with both hands holding the reins. In the sequel, the girl takes on Joel's habits and begins to use the western riding style, in which the reins are held with one hand.
