The riches of the old world. Details and easter eggs of The Last of Us 2
Table of Contents
For much of the game, we explore the streets of Seattle covered in vegetations and crumbling city buildings. Despite this homogeneity, there's definitely no monotony here. Each location is unique and offers a variety of interesting details, which sometimes elicit interesting comments from the characters. One such detail are working watches, which we can find in various places (provided they are, or recently were inhabited).
On the first day of exploring Seattle, for example, you might find yourself in an old bookstore near a gas station. Among the many books, there's one that can be picked up and examined. After commenting on the contents, Ellie puts it back in place, but it apparently catches Dina's eye, because when we're not looking (or pretending not to be looking), our companion quietly takes it. If you trigger this event, you will be able to find the book in theater later, on day three. Watching it will trigger a comment from Ellie.
Since I mentioned the gas station, it's also worth noting that the fuel prices we can find match the actual prices in Seattle in September 2013, when the epidemic reached critical mass and the civilization collapsed. If we look at the distributors at this station and compare them to similar devices in Jacksonville, we will see that the fuel sold at the time had a different octane number. This corresponds to reality, as the quality of gas in US differs according to the region.
Another place worth a visit is a music store. There, we can find Pearl Jam's album "Lightning Bolt" – it was released a few weeks after the epidemic broke out, according to the lore. One of the songs featured on the album is Lightning Bolt, which Joel performs about during the game. How could he have known this song? Well, if you examine this matter, you'll learn the song had been performed by the band way before the album was released. By the way, Neil Druckmann revealed in one of the interviews that Pearl Jam's manager was initially reluctant to work with Naughty Dog. In order to convince him, they showed him a trailer for the game, which even Sony hadn't seen at that point. It's called special treatment!
One of the more notable locations in Seattle is the hotel. On its second floor is the red room number 217 with two bodies inside. It is a reference to Stephen King's famous book The Shining, the action of which also took place in a hotel, and in which room 217 (the number was changed to 237 in the film) played a prominent role. The word "redrum", which read aloud sounds like the English phrase "red room", also played an important role in the novel. Just like in TLAU2.
Another detail that's really easy to miss is found in the aquarium. Near the moored boat, there's an auditorium and numerous handrails, on which we can actually slide down. Even the vengeful furies have something of a child.
Fans of David Benioff
The creators of The Last of Us are devotees of the book City of Thieves by David Benioff, one of the creators of the TV version of Game of Thrones. They have repeatedly cited the novel as one of their main inspirations and paid tribute to it and its author in the game. The name of the main character of the book was Lev, a seventeen-year-old who tried to survive the atrocious siege of Leningrad during World War II.
In the first part of The Last of Us, we could find an excerpt of an article written by a man named Lev Benioff – the name is, of course, a reference to the main character of the novel, and the name to its author. In TLoU: Part II, however, one of the major characters is named Lev. In addition, Abby also reads the City of Thieves during the game.
Dust and ice
A lot of work has also been put into reliably presenting natural phenomena in the game. For example, it's worth playing in the ice-covered areas around Jacksonville. By walking up to the trees and poking branches, we will make them snow in a realistic way. But stepping on the brittle ice in the creek will make it crack and break.
In heavily dusted places (the synagogue is a good example) we can clean the surfaces a little bit – the easiest way to do that is to lie on the floor and crawl over the dust. The places we touch lose the layer of thick dust. If you go backwards up the stairs, the character will carefully look behind.
At a certain point, we start swimming. There are different animations depending on the depth. As long as it's pretty shallow, the character will find some support on the bottom. If you decide to read a document in the water, you will see them becoming dripping wet. After we get out of the water, of course, our character will stay wet for a while. If we leave her alone, additional animation of wiping the wet sleeve over her mouth will activate – in which case we will see water dripping from Ellie's face as well.
Naughty Dog took care not only of visual, but also audio fidelity. In selected locations, such as inside a grain silo, we can produce a clear echo. By relying on hearing, we can also open safes – finding the right part of the combination is accompanied by a unique sound. Armed with this knowledge and with good speakers (or headphones), we are able to open all available in-game safes without having to worry about knowing the right combination.
Another great detail regards the benches we use to upgrade weapons. Before starting the modifications (which are accompanied by unique animations), the heroine removes ammunition from the weapon – both from the magazine and from the chamber. When the work's finished, the magazine returns to its place, but the single removed bullet is not recovered. The exception is when the gun was not loaded – then we lose nothing.
Playing with the rope
The Last of Us 2 boasts one of the best rope physics in computer games, which the game regularly uses, allowing us to hook ropes onto hanging objects in order to get to otherwise inaccessible places. When running with this accessory, we have to be careful not to catch an object by mistake. By maneuvering properly, we are even able to tie a rope around our weapons.
