TLOU 2 Encounters Save Files

A complaint many people have regarding the option to replay individual encounters in both games is the fact that the game gives you only certain weapons and upgrades instead of letting you use everything you unlocked in a previous save, which sometimes makes those encounters pretty awful to play.

This is why I've made a rudimentary but (hopefully) functional way of replaying your favorite encounters with your entire arsenal in Part II. It involves messing with the save files so this is only doable on PC, though.

Basically, I've done an entire NG+ playthrough with all my equipment and upgrades while making sure to do a manual save at each encounter. All the save files are properly organized and labeled, and I'll be sharing them in this post so that you all can use them. But first things first, I want to explain and suggest a few things

Before you actually do anything with the save files, make sure to create a backup of all your saves somewhere, just in case you mess up.

Now, if you don't know where your own save files are located, just follow this path: C:\Users\(whatever your username is)\Documents\The Last of Us Part II\(a very long number)\savedata. The savedata folder is the one you want to backup.

Once you reach this folder, you'll see a lot of folders, all named as ''SAVEFILEXX'', with that ''XX'' being a different number for each save. Something interesting that you should 100% take into account when messing around with your save files and to recognize which one is each is the fact that, for some unknown reason, the manual saves you see in-game are numbered one unit higher than the actual save file in your PC. In other words, if you make a manual save at a certain point and the game says it's ''Manual Save 3'', that save will be found in the ''SAVEFILE02'' folder instead.

Another important thing to consider is that TLOU 2 only allows 20 manual saves at once (and there are a lot more encounters than that), so you can't keep a save for all encounters in the game at the same time. However, I still think that PC users could find this useful to replay and practice their favourite sections without having to endure the lenghty walking simulator sections that you normally face otherwise.

By the way, keep in mind that I do not have all the extra content in the game. I do have all the gameplay modifiers and some of the skins, but I'm still missing a lot of skins, visual filters, etc. I don't know if extra content is linked to the save files directly, but in case it is and you do have extras I don't, that's another reason to create a backup of your own save files. If any of you does know how all that works, feel free to tell me, please.

Now, I'll explain how to use any of my save files for whichever encounter you want. First, download the folder with all the save files.

Then, copy the save file for your desired encounters. Let's say I want to replay Hillcrest Houses, for example. I just have to head into the ''Seattle Day 2 (Ellie)'' folder and into the one called ''Hillcrest Houses''. Copy the ''SAVEFILEXX'' folder and then head back to your own save files directory (the one I mentioned a few paragraphs above).

Before you paste it into your own save files directory, make sure that you're not overwriting a save you do care about. Another example, let's imagine you don't want to overwrite your Manual Save 5 because it belongs to an ongoing run you still haven't finished. Due to what I already stated before, Manual Save 5 is found in the game files as ''SAVEFILE04'', so if you paste a save file for the Hillcrest Houses encounter that's also called like that, you will overwrite your previous save file. To avoid this, you can just rename my encounters save files by changing the numbers at the end to whatever suits you. In this specific scenario, you could rename the Hillcrest Houses encounter save file to ''SAVEFILE07'', or to whatever manual save spot you haven't occupied or you don't care about. Even in the worst case scenario that you overwrite an important save for you, as long as you've made a backup for all your saves as I suggested at the beggining of the post, you can always restore it.

Finally, once you've already found your desired file and made sure that it isn't going to overwrite anything important, just paste it in your own save files directory and that should be it. Launch the game and Hillcrest Houses should be there for you to play it whenever you want and with all weaponry and upgrades.

I know I've written an entire Bible chapter to explain it all but it's actually a very quick process if you know what you're doing.

All the save files were made in a Custom+ run, with everything set to Grounded+ except for resources, which were set to Survivor+. You should still be able to change the d