The Last of Us Part II Remastered is out now on PC, and includes a small update for the roguelike survival mode No Return. We’ve added four new maps to the rotation, and two new playable characters from Part I: the gruff loveable smuggler Bill and the Firefly leader Marlene. I’m really thrilled with how these new characters fit into the mode, and wanted to unpack a little bit of their design process.
Every character in No Return has a unique loadout of starting gear and abilities. Our first priority when designing this kit is connecting to character traits from the story. For some this is straightforward: Abby as a brawler, Tommy as a sniper, Lev as a stealth archer. Others require more creativity: Dina mentions that Eugene “taught me about rewiring electronics and stuff”, which translated into her crafting-focused identity.
In terms of thematic connection, Bill was definitely in the former category. We wanted to give him his iconic pump shotgun and trap mines from his appearance in Part I. We also wanted to play off his identity as a smuggler, which connected nicely to the dead drop mechanic in No Return. Bill can optionally deliver crafting items to clandestine dropboxes on the map, and will receive a double reward for doing so (both a new random weapon and a new random recipe). No other character has a trait connected to completing dead drops, so it was a nice unique hook for him.
Getting extra rewards from dead drops helped us solve another design problem: shotguns are extremely powerful in No Return. We found through internal playtesting that starting with a shotgun was difficult to balance; enemies frequently run towards you in this mode, and ammo scarcity is less of a constraint. Therefore we opted to instead make Bill’s fully-upgraded custom pump shotgun a dead drop reward. Players would have to invest a little more effort to get it, but doubling the random reward made it appear reliably.
To balance his built-in advantages, we made Bill unable to dodge but have reduced hit reactions from melee (like Joel and Tommy in No Return). The trap mines and pump shotgun give players effective tools to overcome this vulnerability.
Marlene was a little more challenging to express thematically. She’s narratively connected to the Fireflies, but what could that hook into mechanically? Our first idea was to give her the Assault Rifle, a full-auto weapon unique to the Fireflies in Part I (and not previously available in Part II). We also gave her the option to “switch lanes” once per run, as if she were tapping into her underground Firefly connections and intel. Both were interesting, but didn’t quite establish a strong gameplay identity.
We finally landed on the idea of connecting her to gambits, which are dynamic optional challenges that randomly appear during a run. In The Last of Us, Marlene is a brave but desperate leader willing to risk her entire organization on a long shot with Ellie. What if No Return players were placed in a similar “all or nothing” position, required to complete every gambit or risk losing their encounter reward. We thought this was a really unique playstyle and helped balance out her powerful starting weapon.
No Return remains close to my heart, and I’m looking forward to seeing the incredible runs that players have with Bill and Marlene. A big thanks to everyone on the team who worked on the new update and on bringing The Last of Us Part II Remastered to PC!
