By Andrew Dodson on April 19, 2014 at 12:27am
Naughty Dog released the details of the third and final DLC drop for the current "The Last of Us" season pass,"Grounded Bundle." The DLC comes jammed packed with interesting additions to the game.
While it had already been established that there would be no more single-player story DLC coming to the game, Naughty Dog is adding a "Grounded" difficulty mode to the game, which they are saying makes surviving the single player campaign almost impossible. If you manage to pass it, however, you will be rewarded with a "Completed Grounded Mode" trophy which, no doubt, will addition to people's collections.
The Factions multiplayer mode will get the most out of this DLC. The "Reclaimed Territories Pack" adds the Wharf, Capitol, Water Tower, and Coal Mine maps. The Wharf is from the beginning of the campaign mode, with plenty of hiding spots, sniper nests, and even a boat the players have access to. The Capitol Building is an inside map, which encourages stealth and flanking. The Water Tower features two choke points, which promises to lead to some pretty brutal action. Finally, and most interesting to me, there's the Coal Mine level which is a large outdoor winter map, with tons of scattered abandoned buildings and a long field of vision, with the occasional snowy whiteout to help even things out for shorter-range players. I've put more hours into "The Last of Us" multiplayer than I have with any other game, so I am very excited to see these maps come to the game.
Along with the new maps, Naughty Dog is also introducing a couple of new weapons to the Factions mode. There's the Specter (a silenced automatic rifle), a standard double-barrel shotgun, the Enforcer (a super accurate pistol), and the Launcher, which seems to be a potato gun type of weapon that shoots small explosives. While the first three weapons seem to be relatively standard fare, I believe that the Launcher is going to be a real game changer for Factions and will bring a lot more boom into people's strategies.
On top of the weapons, there are two more skill packs being added to the game, bringing a total of eight new skills into the game. The more interesting ones are the Agility skill, which will allow people to move while crouched faster (good for getting those shiv kills in), Scavenger which allows you to automatically pick up supplies dropped by enemies and the Bomb Expert, which makes all your bombs explode quicker and makes you immune to the effects of your own smoke grenades.
As an added bonus, Naughty Dog is also supplying everyone, even non-Season pass holders, with a new starter weapon: the Full-Auto Rifle. The Full-Auto Rifle is a fully-automatic weapon and will soon be in the hands of every Hunter and Firefly in the game.
"The Last of Us Season Pass" will only be available for another four weeks, becoming unavailable sometime after May 13. At $19.99, and with three different bundles of game DLC, including one amazing story DLC, it is a steal and saves 80 percent (as opposed to buying everything individually).
There is not a clear release date yet for the Grounded Bundle or any of the packs therein, but as soon as that information is released, Player Theory will fill you in.
Good hunting!
Naughty Dog
