The Last of Us Part 1 is a pretty conventional remake of a game that isn’t too old, and there’s a good chance that a number of the people coming into the game will already be more than familiar with The Last of Us gameplay and the ins and outs of its mechanics. But of course, if you’re not in that group, tricks and tricks can never go wrong. Here, we’ve compiled a few handy pointers that you should keep in mind as you play Sony’s newest PS5 remake.
SCAVENGE THOROUGHLY
The Last of Us isn’t an out and out survival horror game, but it does heavily use many of the genre’s elements, with resource management being key among them. Scouring every new area you find yourself in to make sure you find every crafting material, bullet, bandage, or what have you is crucial to the gameplay loop, then. The Last of Us Part 1’s environment’s aren’t as large as Part 2’s often were, so there isn’t quite as much room for exploration- there’s still a decent amount though, so make sure you scavenge as thoroughly as possible, especially if you’re playing on higher difficulties.
PRIORITIZE MELEE TO SAVE AMMO
Ammo is scarce in The Last of Us Part 1, which means you can’t go into encounters looking to spray bullets in all directions and mow down all enemies. Of course, sometimes using your guns is the best (and often the only) course of action, but when you can help it, you should rely on melee attacks. Find ways to get up close to your enemies so you can use any melee weapons you’ve picked up or even your fists to deal some major damage to enemies without having to waste any bullets.
MELEE WEAPON UPGRADES
Speaking of melee weapons, The Last of Us Part 1 does allow players to apply minor upgrades to them- though more often than not, that’s not the best use of resources. Everything you craft in the game pulls from the same handful of groups of materials, and usually, there are other, more useful things that you can craft using the resources that would be required for those melee weapon upgrades. So sure, a baseball bat with nails hammered through it would deal more damage, but given the fact that it would break in a few hits, maybe saving those resources for something more useful might be smarter.
BRICKS AND BOTTLES
Finally, in addition to your wrists and the breakable melee weapons you find laying around, The Last of Us Part 1 also lets you pick up objects in the environment – specifically, bricks or empty bottles – that primarily serve as throwables, but can also be used to smash into enemies as one-time weapons in scraps. You usually find plenty of these in the environments, so always make sure you have one or the other, because they can be quite useful. Stealthy players will want to keep an empty bottle with them, since it serves as a neat distraction during stealth sequences, but running at a dude and smashing his head in with a brick is also quite a way to finish off an encounter, so there’s that.
BOW
Some hours into The Last of Us Part 1, you’ll get your hands on a bow, and as you’d imagine, it can be quite a useful weapon. It is, of course, probably the most handy ranged weapon at your disposal when it comes to stealth options, but we’d suggest using it even in some situations where you might ordinarily use a gun. Of course, given how much longer it takes to fire an arrow, that’s often not wise, but when you do have those few extra seconds, using up an arrow is better than using up a bullet, since arrows can be recovered.
SHIVS
Shivs are another crucial resource in The Last of Us Part 1, and we’d recommend always having one on you at all times. Not only do shivs give you faster stealth kills than strangling someone with your bare hands, they’re also the only way to stealth kill Clickers. On top of that, you’ll also often find locked doors that can only be opened with shivs, potentially hiding precious resources and items inside. All of which is to say, as soon as you’ve used up a shiv, if you have the resources for it, craft another one immediately.
SHIV MASTER SKILL
Given how important shivs can be in The Last of Us Part 1, making them more useful and effective is something well worth keeping an eye on. The Shiv Master upgrade can be particularly useful and is something you should set your sights on right off the bat, since it allows you to survive an otherwise instant-kill Clicker attack by stabbing it with a shiv. Meanwhile, you can should also work towards the upgrade that makes your shivs more durable.
HEALTH UPGRADE
Sticking to the topic of upgrades, another obvious one that you should begin working towards at the earliest is improving your health. In both stealth and combat, The Last of Us Part 1 can put up plenty of challenge (especially on higher difficulties), so make sure you use the pills you’ve scavenged to upgrade your health as soon as you have enough. You’re allowed two health upgrades, so keep that in mind as well.
AMMO CAPACITY
Moving on to weapon upgrades, there’s plenty of options there as well that can help everything from power rate and reload speed to recoil and more, and while those are all handy upgrades in their own right, the one we’d suggest going for above all the others is ammo capacity. The more weapons with upgraded ammo capacity you have in your arsenal, the more bullets you’re able to carry with you, which, in this game, is a premium. Each ammo capacity upgrade increases that number just a little bit more, and collectively added up, that extra capacity can come in very handy.
GUN HOLSTERS
Joel starts out with being able to carry a pistol and a rifle where guns are concerned, but The Last of Us Part 1 does, of course, allow you to expand that. Using weapon parts and tools that you’ll find exploring the environments, you can craft additional holsters that’ll let you carry an extra pistol as well as an extra long gun. The latter in particular is a huge boost, though really, both are musts, especially for when you get deeper into the game. Saving up enough parts so you can unlock both holsters as soon as possible would be the wise move.