'The Last Of Us Part II' Climbs To Third Best-Selling US PlayStation Game

Nearly two months after becoming the highest-selling UK game ever, “The Last of Us Part II” has become the third highest-grossing game ever for PlayStation in the U.S.

The only first-party Sony titles to top Naughty Dog’s winning title in terms of life-to-date profit are “Marvel’s Spider-Man” from Insomniac and “God of War” by Sony Santa Monica. Both of those titles have been out for a considerably longer period of time than this sequel, Eurogamer notes.

When “The Last of Us Part II” was released in June, it sold four million copies during its opening weekend to make it the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 exclusive ever worldwide. It has been the biggest launch to date in 2020 across both retail and digital sales.

In the U.S., it's reportedly the third best-selling game of 2020, with “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” still outpacing the sales for “The Last of Us Part II.” Still a magnificent accomplishment considering how it was heavily review bombed on Metacritic mere hours after its release.

Director Neil Druckmann led the development as creative director and writer for “The Last of Us Part II.” These were the same roles he performed for “The Last of Us” and another Naughty Dog title, “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.”

Recently, “The Last of Us Part II” introduced the Grounded Update. This brings in new ways to play the action-adventure title including permadeath mode, gameplay updates, and visual modifiers.

Grounded is a difficulty setting that was available in the original “The Last of Us” from 2013. It increases the game difficulty by "making enemies deadlier and ammo, upgrade, and crafting materials incredibly scarce," says Naughty Dog. The setting also removes survival tools including Listen mode and some elements of the UI.

Unlike Grounded, permadeath is a gameplay modifier that can be enjoyed on any difficulty setting. With the modifier active, if you die, you'll face more rigorous checkpoints, requiring you to restart an entire selection of gameplay if you perish. Permadeath can be set to three distinct checkpoints per death: whole game, whole act, or a whole chapter.

The permadeath option gives players a single life to complete the entire game. Each new mode unlocks a new Trophy, but Naughty Dog notes neither is required for Platinum.