Five years after its release, The Last of Us Part 2 has a significant new update that lets you play through the story chronologically, and I'm starting to think Sony is gunning for Skyrim's re-release crown.
As detailed in a new PlayStation Blog, The Last of Us Part 2: Chronological Experience is a new update that's free and available to all The Last of Us 2: Remastered players today. The update pretty much does what it says on the tin – for the first time, you can now play through the entirety of The Last of Us 2's story in chronological order instead of in non-linear patches like the original release.
I consider The Last of Us 2 to be a near-perfect video game story, and some of that has to do with the order in which it's told. That said, Naughty Dog came up with the idea to rearrange its story in this update simply because it had "wondered what it would be like to experience this story chronologically."
"Through the new Chronological mode, we believe players will gain even deeper insight into Part II's narrative," Naughty Dog says. "Players will be able to see how Ellie being gifted a guitar flows so neatly into her learning to play, for example, while the journey through Seattle will showcase the fascinating parallels between Ellie and Abby's crisscrossing journeys. You'll see just how close they come into running into each other, how their actions impact each other, and more."
You have to give it to Sony; it's managed to come up with yet another reason to play The Last of Us 2 after remastering the game in 2024, bundling in a ton of new content including the No Return roguelike mode, and releasing the Complete Edition bundle and PC port in 2025. Personally, the new story arrangement is my biggest incentive yet to revisit the beautiful but utterly harrowing story for the first time since 2020.
As Naughty Dog explains, there's also a more tangible reward for playing the new story mode: Uncharted skins. That's right, if you complete Chronological Experience, you'll unlock skins that let you dress up Joel and Tommy as Nathan Drake and Sam Drake from Uncharted (pictured above). The skins are only available in the No Return mode, but it's a crossover I've been wanting to see play out for years.
The new story mode is obviously the highlight of the update, but players can also expect "a host of additional bug fixes and performance improvements," which is a little surprising given, again, the game's been out for five years.
Find out where The Last of Us 2 ranks on our list of the best PS5 games.
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