Are items (supplies, ammo, supplements) random

the-last-of-us

I'm playing through on Survivor+ and it is very hard to come across items. I'm wondering if items are the same and in the same locations for everyone or if they are randomly generated. If they are random, I would also like to know when the randomness happens. For example: I get a checkpoint and then find a drawer that I can open. When I open the drawer, there is nothing in it. If I keep reloading the checkpoint, is there a chance that I will find something in that drawer?

Best Answer

Having played through the game multiple times on multiple difficulties and reloaded many an area, I can tell you that the item locations follow this pattern:

  • Parts, supplements, ammo, supplies, comics, firefly pendants, and artifacts located in the environment are always the same per difficulty. On higher difficulties, they are much rarer, being extremely so on survivor. The layouts are the same on that difficulty and no matter how often you check the empty drawers, they will remain empty unless you lower your difficulty. In tens of runs through some areas (probably around 100 or more) on any single difficulty, I have yet to see environmental items change once.
  • Ammo dropped by enemies is random. Upon repeated failure of an encounter, the chance for enemies to drop ammo increases. On survivor, that increase is hardly as significant as on other difficulties and the drop rates are still rather low. Use of your ammunition seems to somewhat encourage the game to throw you a bone or two, but that leaves you largely at the mercy of running around empty for the most part.

In summary, environmentally positioned items (like in a drawer) are not random and dropped items are.