Remember The Greatness Of The Last Of Us Factions?

With the recent release of The Last of Us Part 2, we’ve been reminiscing on how much fun the multiplayer from the first game was. The uniqueness of a slower-paced, resource-intensive, gritty multiplayer experience was nothing short of phenomenal. When Naughty Dog informed us that they had no plans of a multiplayer mode for Part 2, we joined the gaming community’s collective devastation. 

Last week, Yoshyaes discussed 10 things he loved about the campaign in The Last Of Us Part 2. Both of the Two Average Gamers are currently in the second half of the story. We have, perhaps delusionally, concluded that there must be a multiplayer mode on the horizon.

Will it be a standalone game? Will it be announced as a PS5 exclusive? Is the multiplayer gonna be a free DLC for PS$ owners? Something! We can’t imagine living in a world where we don’t get to play The Last Of Us Part 2 Factions multiplayer. There is just too much potential.

In that light, here are 10 things we would want to be included in a multiplayer version of The Last Of Us Part 2. We’ll do our best to keep this as spoiler-free as possible for those that have dodged the leaks and chosen not to play yet.

Make the Faction choice mean something

In The Last Of Us Factions, you began by selecting your faction between the Fireflies and the Hunters. The selection had little meaning other than what you color you appeared when you played.

Yellow for Firefly and blue for Hunter. Enemies always showed up as red, regardless of faction choice.

As you progressed through 15 weeks of challenges, your success dictated your population’s survival. Throw in a few narrative screens between rounds and that’s where the “story” of Factions ended. In a sequel, we would want your Faction choice to have greater implications. 

For starters, each faction should “feel” different. Access to specialized super weapons and maybe even perks should be varied depending on group choice. That would dictate play styles and perhaps one faction may have inherent advantages based on the map. The developers can use community feedback and statistics to make sure they keep a balance between the factions to prevent one from becoming too powerful. 

Truly Create Your Post-Apocalyptic Avatar

In the original Factions MP, we had control over accessories like hats and backpack emblems. Each match, you were assigned a random character. This gave the sense to the “story” that each match was a member of your population going out.

Conceptually, this idea is decent, but games like this should give you more control over your personal appearance. Exploring this is a win on all sides. The players get to really customize the look of their character and the developers get to sell cosmetics to the people who are dedicated to having a truly unique look. 

If they wanted to really take this idea and run, the size of your character could correlate to statistics. More on this idea later.

Allow Us To Create Sub Factions

Once you’ve chosen your side and have your avatar developed, now it’s time to team up with your friends. Allow us to create our own sub-faction to truly rep our clan.

Imagine recruiting 19 of PSN friends into a sub-faction you created called The Gray Wolves. After each match every member finishes, an overall score is adjusted to see how you rank against the other sub-factions in your geographical region.  Whatever game modes make the final cut could all feed into this overall score.

Naughty Dog could include more grind-y game modes to simulate the idea of running for supplies or materials for your clan. Give bonus points for playing with your clanmates. You could even involve the challenge system into this overall team score. The possibilities are seemingly endless!

Give us an Infected Mode!

Naughty Dog said the first go-around that they couldn’t produce a multiplayer experience with infected that lived up to their standards. We trust that they made the right call, at least for the modes we were presented.

However, if we are revamping the entire multiplayer experience, there could be a co-op mode where you must get through hordes of infected to support your population better. This would give the people what they want without introducing AI infected which could lead to frustrating interactions with two human teams. 

Surely an endless horde mode, similar to when Ellie and David battled in the first game, would be well received. The Bloaters want to play online too! 

Introduce Base Character Statistics

The perk system in Factions MP was one of the most powerful replayability factors. You had the ability to be a lone wolf assassin or a fast-reviving medic. You could be a gift-giving crafter or a demolition expert. These perks greatly changed your stats.

The best part was there didn’t seem to be one standard way to play the game. The synergy with your team was what led to the most success. Unlike other multiplayer games, taking down a full team as a solo was not likely. 

Without removing the in-game upgrade and crafting system, it would be cool to see Naughty Dog explore ways to have more permanent upgrades to characters. This would have to be balanced in a way to make sure you are only facing players at your skill/strength level so someone jumping into their first game isn’t helpless against a veteran. 

Better Stat Tracking

Stat tracking in multiplayer shooters has become a norm in the gaming industry. In the first TLoU, Factions didn’t give you much in the way of tracking, other than for your challenges, score and K/D. Most recently, we talked about the necessary changes to the stats page in Apex Legends. Naughty Dog doesn’t have to go this far in their first iteration, but there should be some base info that is provided to the online community on day 1. Factions Part 2 should include kills with each weapon, accuracy, consumables usage, and support numbers (revives, gifts given, etc.) to start. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake.

Squad-Based Perks

Speaking of support, there should be more synergy among squads who work together. Specifically, Part 2 should introduce perks that have stacking benefits depending on if another member has it equipped. Dauntless does a great job of this and there’s definitely an opportunity to do this in Factions.

The things that come to mind are boosts to movement speed, access to different purchasable items, and maybe even unique improvements to attacks like brawler power. Squad-based perks can be very subtle and require a significant number of loadout points and can really reward the folks who play well as a team.

Team Mobility

Fans of the campaign know that traveling with a companion opens up options in terms of where your character can access. The main way this is demonstrated is by boosting one character to a higher altitude and doing a team lift of obstruction objects.

These two changes could grant access to advantageous high ground or rare loot on the map. It could be easily balanced by making the animations slow and loud.

The developers would need to be mindful in implementing reasonable counters for the opposing team to prevent one squad from being overpowered for the rest of the game.

Use of Rope

While it’s no Uncharted 4 grappling hook, the ropes in The Last of Us Part 2 story mode is a video game physics marvel. Rope motion is incredibly realistic and allows Ellie to reach otherwise-unaccessible areas. Similarly, Factions Part 2 should have strategically placed ropes around the multiplayer maps to let players swing and climb to different locations.

It would also be cool to see rope used as a crafting material for consumables. There’s definitely an opportunity for traps to be made given we’ve already got scissors, alcohol, bricks and bottles in the game.

Lastly, it’d be interesting to have a game mode where you need to take an enemy player hostage by capturing them and tying them up with rope. The actual implementation of this would be tough but could make for a really unique match if done properly.

Larger Battles

4v4 worked really well in the first Factions, but we’d like to see an even larger match style. This could be done in a variety of ways:

• 8v8 mode in a much larger map
• One large region where the factions fight for territories over the course of a season
• Have multiple squads of 4 on each team where each squad is tasked with specific objectives
• 40 person battle royale where resources are incredibly scarce and you need to craft your weapons

Depending on the scale and playing area, the devs could even introduce vehicles and water-based combat. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be swimming around in Factions Part 2!

The Bottom Line 

The bottom line is simple: Factions Part 2 is needed. Whatever Naughty Dog comes up with will most likely be good enough. Adding the bare minimum to the first game would suffice for many gamers around the world. A few fresh maps, weapons, and perks and you have a game that would be played for years to come. 

Here’s to hoping that they are planning the surprise of a gaming generation and a team that leaked story elements is keeping the entirety of the existence multiplayer tight-lipped. That would be a Christmas miracle. 

Let us know what you would want in Factions if The Last Of Us Part 2 featured it in the comments section below! Feel free to join the conversations on our social media platforms too!

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Also, we just started a new podcast! Check out episode one here, where we talk about the free-to-play gaming model!