I played it on my Steam Deck, 30 FPS average with lots of audio crackling, apparently because of the CPU load. I played the game in hard mode because I was afraid survivor and grounded would break the balance.

The gameplay is great: it was insanely fun outsmarting the infected, circling around the clickers, burning the bloaters. Against those enemies, stealth really was a challenge and I had to manage my stress level (stalkers and runners were especially hard to deal with in the sewer); I’m convinced I would not be able to finish this game in permanent death as certain sequences took me 5-7 tries to do correctly (optimizing to use the least amount of gear or straight up surviving). It was really hard to aim well enough on a controller to be able to do headshot with consistency (this game with a controller and a mouse must feel like heaven to master).

Stealth against humans is way too easy though: you can easily never use your weapons and just throw a glass bottle against the wall, cleanup with a bomb or a Molotov, and you will never be punished when doing a stealthy kill if you take too long which basically means that shiv are useless for anything other than doors (I did not buy the ability to get off the grasp of clickers with shivs).

The hostage mechanic felt so cool, but I rarely used it because I felt like I couldn’t afford to waste bullets because of the resource scarcity. I would have loved the game to be more punishing and to force me to spend my gear; I was never spotted and I am horrible at stealth (hello Cyberpunk 2077).

On the writing side, the game shines even more. I was so heartbroken when Sarah was murdered, when Tess sacrificed herself, when Sam turned and Henry killed himself, when Joel said horrible things to Ellie, when he murdered all the fireflies, the surgeon, Marlene in cold blood.

And that’s where the game shines! It shows you this great dynamics between Joel and Ellie, this growing bond that is so precious. You despise and love Joel: you despise his lack of moral, his emotional immaturity (not wanting to talk about the hard stuff and lying to Ellie) but you understand where it comes from, you understand why the violence happened.

This constant tension, this gray area makes the game so real and gripping; you can only look with a mix of disgust and support as you’re ripping your way through the enemies in the hospital with savagery.

What Joel did is unequivocally wrong and selfish but I cannot judge because I know full well I’d probably have done the same thing in this situation. Well, I’m not sure but I can see it.

This game really made me understand the complexity of moral and decision, the conflicting goals and the harshness of survival. I highly look forward to playing the sequel.

EDIT; I think the right difficulty for me is the “Survivor” one, grounded looks to hard without a mouse.