Okay so recently I got kinda curious about the PC modding scene for The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. Heard people were doing some… interesting things. Decided I’d dive in myself and check out what folks were calling the “essential” cosmetic mods. You know, just to see what the fuss was about.
Finding the Stuff
First step was hunting where these things live. Spent like an hour digging through my usual forums and mod sites, you know the ones with crazy busy comment sections and questionable banner ads. Was specifically looking for popular body texture swaps and “less restrictive” outfits. Scrolled through pages of stuff, some were just minor tweaks, others were way more… uh… thorough. Settled on trying out a “top 5 essentials” list someone posted. Sounded like exactly what I was after – the highly recommended ones everyone talks about.
The downloads were pretty straightforward once I found them:
- A Complete Reskin Mod: Supposedly replaces just about everything texture-wise.
- The “No Obstructions” Pack: Exactly what it sounds like. Removes certain pesky barriers.
- Enhanced Physics Mod: Adds some… let’s call it extra realism to body movement.
- Alternative Outfit Collection: Mainly featuring things like strategically torn gear or basically nothing at all.
- HD Texture Add-On: Not strictly essential for the mod experience I was going for, but figured it couldn’t hurt to make things look sharper.
Getting It Into the Game
Downloading them was actually the easy part. Clicked the download buttons, waited for the files (mostly .paks or archives), saved them somewhere sensible on my PC. Then came the install. Had to dig around the game files, find the super specific folder where mods go – something like ~mods tucked away in the game directory. Dropped all those new mod files straight into that folder. Easy peasy? Yeah, mostly. Read some comments saying loading order might matter, so I just dumped them all in and hoped for the best.
Fired up the game, heart pounding just a little. Selected “Load Game” and picked an older save just to see. Game loaded… no crashes? Good sign!
Seeing It In Action… Mostly
Okay, loaded into the game world. Looked… different! Immediately noticed Ellie had a very different aesthetic. Things seemed to work at first glance.
But then some weirdness hit:
- Purple People Eater Moment: Suddenly Abby looked completely purple during a cutscene! Had to remember which mod that was causing it. Found the culprit texture file name and ripped that specific mod file back out.
- The Disappearing Act: In one area, an important NPC completely vanished visually. Still had their name tag floating! Figured it was a clash between an outfit mod and something else. Swore under my breath, disabled that particular mod, reloaded, and poof the character was back. Weird.
- Physics Freakout: During an intense melee sequence, some physics went completely bananas. Think limbs stretching into the next zip code. That was definitely the Enhanced Physics mod having a bad day. Toggled it off for that play session.
Took some trial and error disabling specific mods when things got too glitchy. Ended up keeping two of the five running solidly for a full session. Had to accept that modding can be messy like that sometimes. Felt like a tiny victory though!
Thoughts After the Tinkering
So yeah, installed the so-called “essentials”. Got ’em working, kinda. The visual changes are definitely impactful, like whoa sometimes. But honestly? The hassle of finding them, getting them installed without breaking everything, and then dealing with weird bugs? Man, it felt less like unlocking a premium experience and more like wrestling a greased pig. They change the look drastically, sure, but the process definitely took the “smooth” out of the gaming experience.
Still kinda blows my mind what people make for these games, even if it makes my game crash if I sneeze wrong. Wild scene.