10 Video Games You Should Play On Hard Mode

Though The Last Of Us is generally better known and beloved by gamers for its intense, emotional storyline than the difficulty of its gameplay, both entries into the series feature multiple harder difficulties that dramatically change the gameplay.

In ‘Survivor’ and ‘Grounded’ modes, enemies do double or triple typical damage respectively. Supplies are extremely hard to find, with pickup-able items no longer flashing on screen, and game hints, prompts, and the all important Listen Mode - which allows better enemy detection - all disabled.

For an even greater challenge, Grounded difficulty disables the HUD and on-controller light indicators, also removing multiple mid-combat or stealth checkpoints, rendering you ever more vulnerable; which is all the worse when you consider that powerful melee weapons are de-spawned, and almost all NPCs no longer provide health items or ammo. Yikes.

While these modes will test the player, forcing you to use clever tactics to go above and beyond your increasingly intelligent and aggressive enemies, they also most accurately emulate the reality of Ellie and Joel.

In a survival horror game where the characters are emotionally integral to the storyline, there’s no better way to do them justice than to play the best replication of their experience.