Completing The Last of Us Part 2 on Grounded Unlocks a Special Song
There's a special treat in the end credits section.
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If you remember back to the early beginnings of The Last of Us Part 2, you might remember Joel plays a small song for Ellie on a guitar in Jackson City. It turns out that you can hear the track in full during the credits of the game should you manage to beat it on Grounded difficulty.
Be warned, there are spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 below!
At the very beginning of The Last of Us Part 2, you play a very small section as Joel, during which the former protagonist plays a short tune for Ellie on a guitar. Joel doesn't quite finish the song however, before he sort of ducks out in embarrassment, but check out the brief clip below for a refresher.
It turns out that if you manage to beat The Last of Us Part 2 on the new Grounded difficulty, you'll hear this song from Joel in full as the credits play, as one Twitter user discovered recently. The track is "Future Days" by Pearl Jam, and you'll be able to hear it in full without Joel getting embarrassed this time.
Grounded difficulty was added to The Last of Us Part 2 late last week, so I'm pretty surprised people have already beaten the game on the ultra-tough difficulty setting. Grounded was the hardest difficulty for the original Last of Us, but this time around it was added in a post-launch update for the sequel.
All in all, it's a really nice touch from Naughty Dog to have the full song play over the end credits as a little bonus reward for completing the game on Grounded difficulty. For me, The Last of Us Part 2 is a really special game, and this moment between Joel and Ellie at the beginning of the game is the first of many stunning interactions between the two over the course of the game, and as Jake wrote back when the game launched, it perfectly understands the importance of music in the mourning process.