The Most Frustrating Section Of The Last Of Us Part 2

"The Last of Us Part 2" is a game built around brief moments of calm beauty alternating with long segments of life-threatening tension. Many of the regions in the game are built for exploration. These allow the player to roam around an open area gathering information and materials, viewing the sights, and choosing whether they would prefer to take out their enemies using stealth or if they would rather smash their way through them, guns blazing. These big, open areas were a significant addition that helped transform the franchise by taking it off the more linear path of its predecessor, but not all of the sections in the game are like this.

"The Last of Us" is a franchise that treads the ground between action-adventure and survival-horror. This means there are moments in the game where Naughty Dog wants the player to feel like there is nowhere to run, boxing them in and forcing them to frantically fight for their lives. Sometimes Ellie and Abbey's explorations across the post-apocalyptic landscape find them trapped in tight corridors, packed with monstrous enemies and without a lot of room to maneuver. But which of them is these segments is the most frustrating? Well, one contender is a section that takes place during Abby's first day in Seattle, where she is trapped in a dilapidated office building while Lev and Yara try to find a way for her to escape.

This takes place in Chapter 6 Day 1, in the section titled The Forest (per IGN). After Abby, Yara, and Lev escape from the Scars' camp in the woods, they will run into an overgrown neighborhood that is absolutely crawling with infected. Abby will eventually have to get into a fist fight against a giant Seraphite wielding a pickaxe. This miniboss battle is a tough fight in itself, but at least it's well lit and there's only one enemy to worry about. After defeating the Seraphite, Abby will get her pack, weapons and equipment back, and the group will make their way through La Rosa's Auto Shop, where they can stock up on a little ammo and equipment. Once they've crossed the path on the far side, they will make their way into what looks like a ruined office building.

It's extremely dark in here and the only light the player has to rely on is the little flashlight clipped to Abby's pack. There are infected inside and the building has lots of dark corners for them to pop out of – which they do. The tight corridors and hidden spaces make navigating the building less than ideal, but the really hard part comes when the player reaches the door at the back.

Eventually, Abby will come to a large pair of steel double doors. A cutscene is initiated when the player tries to interact with them. Abby will press as hard as she can, but they won't budge. Unable to get through, she boosts Yara and Lev up through an opening over the top of the doors and asks them to find a way to let her out from the other side. Dozens of infected come running just as soon as Yara and Lev are outside, however, leaving Abby alone to deal with the oncoming horde.

Runners, Clickers, and Shamblers will all come for Abby from multiple directions, jumping down from higher floors and squeezing through the narrow gaps in the walls. Their sheer numbers, coupled with the low visibility of the building, make it difficult to know where the next enemy is coming from. This makes it tempting to panic-shoot and waste precious ammunition. The Shamblers are particularly dangerous as the noxious spores that they exude can be difficult to avoid in such tight corridors.

Not only is this scene difficult, but one of the most frustrating aspects of it is that the player is trapped, with nowhere to run, unsure whether Lev and Yara can be trusted to actually return.

Several players across numerous forums have agreed that this is one of the most challenging parts of the game. Reddit user eleighb811 started a thread asking fellow "The Last of Us Part 2" gamers what they thought was the most frustrating part was and the top-voted answer was the section where Abby is stuck waiting for Lev and Yara. Another thread asked which part of both "Part 1" and "Part 2" was the most frustrating, and this section was the second highest voted response after the scene where Ellie and David battle the infected in "Part 1." A user comment on a YouTube video featuring the fight also stated that they found this to be the hardest part in the game. 

Many of those trying to play the game on the Grounded difficulty setting have had a particularly hard time with this section. There are whole Reddit threads dedicated to how incredibly difficult this section is compared to everything that came before it, with one player claiming it took them hours to beat while another who hadn't conserved their ammo prior to the battle stated that it took them over 100 attempts. Numerous other threads have been made from fans seeking advice on how to survive this dark and confined gauntlet.