The Last of Us Part 2 Speedrun Guide: Categories and Records

The Last of Us Part II has three main full-game speedrun boards on speedrun.com, and they do not read the same clock. The board for the 2020 game times a run off the play time stored in the save file. The two Remastered boards, one for PS5 and one for PC, take the final time from Speedrun Mode's recap screen. One runner, teja_vu95, holds the restricted glitchless Whole Game record on all three, on New Game and on New Game+. The New Game times are 4:17:02, 4:12:53 and 4:19:37.

This guide covers what Part II Remastered's Speedrun Mode records, which board and category a run belongs on, the settings that get a run rejected, and the records as the boards listed them on October 23, 2026. The rules below come from the rules text speedrun.com publishes for each category. How Part I's Speedrun Mode unlocks is in our Part I skins guide, the three Permadeath scopes are in the Part II difficulty guide, and all 46 chapter names are in the Chronological mode guide.

Three boards, two clocks

All three boards default to in-game time rather than a stopwatch, and all three require video. The 2020 board lists PS5 and PS5 Pro among its platforms, so the PS4 game played on a PS5 goes there, not on the Remastered PS5 board.

Two footnotes to that table. The Remastered boards' Permadeath rules say those runs are timed from the save file, while still requiring you to show the Speedrun Mode recap screen. And the first game is a separate family: Part I has its own PS5 and PC boards, which also default to in-game time, while the boards for the 2013 original and Left Behind are timed in real time.

My read: if you own Remastered, run Remastered. Speedrun Mode makes the category choice and keeps the time for you. On the 2020 board you end a run by pausing or quitting and reading the time off a save file.

What Speedrun Mode does in Part II Remastered

Speedrun Mode is not in the 2020 PS4 release. Naughty Dog's support site says the mode "originated in The Last of Us Part I" and returns in Part II Remastered to let players record their best times across the campaign. Sony's product page marks it with a footnote: "Game progression required to unlock." It does not say how much progression. Part I's version unlocks when you finish the main story, but I could not find a primary source that gives Part II Remastered's exact condition, so do not assume it is the same.

Here is what The Last of Us Wiki's Speedrun Mode article documents. The article covers both games, and the Remastered boards' rules back up the Whole Game, Ellie and Abby choice and the recap screen:

Two more details come from Part I's own New Game menu text, which the wiki quotes. The timer pauses during cinematics and scene transitions, and records are kept separately by game section, challenge level, permadeath setting and New Game+ mode. The Remastered boards make you skip cutscenes anyway.

The checkmark is the one to protect. Per the wiki, you keep it by always quitting to the main menu before you close the game, so make that a habit for every session of a long run.

Ellie%, Abby% and the Whole Game

Most categories split three ways; All Collectibles is the exception. The Remastered boards call the splits Whole Game, Ellie% and Abby%, and the 2020 board calls the first one Main Game. On Remastered the Speedrun Mode menu does the splitting: the Grounded rules tell you to make sure you select Ellie or Abby in the menu, and the Permadeath rules let a Whole Game run be submitted to Ellie% or Abby% too.

The 2020 game has no Speedrun Mode, so its rules set the cut points by hand:

Those are the same seams Speedrun Mode uses. The wiki lists its Abby run as The Park's Tracking Lesson through The Confrontation, and its Whole Game adds The Farm onward. In the game's original order, Ellie% is everything up to The Park, and Abby% is the 18-chapter stretch from The Park to The Confrontation.

Restricted, Unrestricted and Grounded

The categories differ less in route than in which settings you may touch. Restricted and Unrestricted are subcategories of Glitchless, and the Grounded categories carry their own list. Here is what each one bans on the Remastered boards:

Unrestricted's wording is that all accessibility features and gameplay modifiers are allowed except Slow-Mo. That leaves the 20-point cheats such as One Shot and Infinite Ammo legal. The fastest Whole Game time on any of the three boards is an Unrestricted glitchless run: 3:53:54 on PS5, 19 seconds under the 2020 board's Any% record, which is timed on a different clock.

Grounded adds two requirements. When you start, the game may warn "You have options enabled that we recommend disabling for Grounded." The rules say you must answer Yes, which resets those options to their defaults. Grounded also has to be visibly selected in the video, and lowering the difficulty mid-run gets the run rejected. In Restricted, Grounded and All Collectibles runs, the video has to show the banned settings switched off, either before the run or after it.

The 2020 board's lists are close to these. Its rules ban Slow-Mo in every category, and its Any% is played under Unrestricted rules. Every one of these settings is broken down in our Part II accessibility settings guide. Slow Motion is one of the switches behind Enable Combat Accessibility, which is why a Combat Accessibility ban covers it.

Rules every Remastered run has to follow

These lines repeat across the Remastered boards' categories:

• Skip every cutscene.
• Five minutes of pause, in total. The rules allow it for toilet breaks and urgent matters, and pausing longer gets the run rejected.
• Never load a save mid-run, including the current autosave, and do not open the save files to check whether you hit a checkpoint.
• A crash is survivable. Reopen the game, press Continue and carry on, as long as it stays one video. The Grounded Permadeath rules extend this to softlocks.
• PS5: no VRR. The Unlocked Framerate option is banned in every category, and the setting has to appear in the video. Fidelity mode is allowed.
• PC: 120fps cap. Your Framerate Cap, under Options > Display, can be no higher than 120, an FPS counter has to be on screen, and the only file mods allowed are skins.
• No pre-order bonuses in New Game runs. Skins are allowed.

The glitch rules split by category. Glitchless bans anything that takes you out of bounds, and it bans the Backpack Glitch, which the rules describe as going into your bag to skip animations such as the start of the first Seraphite fight. It also bans changing skins mid-run to pull off a glitched skip, and using Photo Mode to scout an area or check where enemies are. Any% allows every glitch, and its rules name slow-motion glitches, death warps, item duplication, out-of-bounds and changing skins to unload areas.

Any% is barely run on Remastered, though. Neither Remastered board had a verified Whole Game Any% run on October 23, 2026, and the PS5 board's only Ellie% Any% record, 2:40:27 on New Game+, is slower than every glitchless Ellie% record on that board.

All Collectibles is a different job on each board

The 2020 board's version also bans gameplay modifiers, Combat Accessibility, High Contrast Display, puzzle skips, Infinite Breath and Enhanced Listen Mode, and the Remastered text repeats the Restricted ban list. Where everything is, category by category, is in our Part II collectibles guide, and the 2020 board's safes are faster with the combinations from the Part II safe codes guide in hand.

One number to watch is 236. Our collectibles guide counts those five categories at 127 artifacts, 20 journal entries, 48 trading cards, 32 coins and 8 training manuals, the same counts PowerPyx gives. That adds up to 235. I could not find what the extra one is. The moderators check the number on your load file, so 236 is the number to hit.

The records as of October 23, 2026

These are the Whole Game records (Main Game on the 2020 board) as the three boards listed them on October 23, 2026, on New Game unless the cell says otherwise. The Remastered boards' Grounded Glitchless and Grounded Permadeath categories do not split New Game from New Game+, so those cells cover both. Dates are the run dates the boards record, and every time is in-game time.

And the two halves, under restricted glitchless rules on New Game:

What the tables show:

• teja_vu95 holds restricted glitchless Whole Game on every board, on New Game and on New Game+.
• The Ellie% records on the 2020 and PS5 boards are one second apart, 2:07:17 and 2:07:18, three and a half years apart and on two different clocks.
• The PC board is where records are still falling. Six of its current records are dated between October 10 and October 18, 2026, all of them teja_vu95's. The newest record on the PS5 board is dated November 4, 2025, and the newest on the 2020 board August 8, 2023.
• Some boards are thin. The PS5 Grounded Glitchless record is 4:57:52. Grounded Permadeath is played under the Grounded Glitchless rules with permadeath on top, and its PS5 record is 13 minutes and 29 seconds faster. The PS5 Grounded Glitchless Whole Game leaderboard lists a single run, so any verified run under 4:57:52 takes first place.

For a first run, my pick is Abby% under restricted glitchless rules. It is the shortest split, with New Game records between 1:43:54 and 1:46:36 on the three boards.

No Return and the extensions board

No Return has its own board, and it is the exception on clocks. It uses real time, from the first frame after you press START to load into the hideout to the frame where RUN COMPLETE fades to black:

The No Return board bans Combat Accessibility, Slow-Mo, High Contrast Display, Enhanced Listen Mode, cheats and render modes, and Photo Mode scouting, and it rejects runs on any version other than unpatched or the current patch. How runs, characters and bosses work is in our No Return guide.

There is also a Part II Category Extensions board, which lists PS4 and PS5. It holds Permadeath, Grounded Permadeath, No Intro Glitchless and Grounded No Intro Glitchless, with Encounters Only and Mirror World as miscellaneous categories.

Quick Action Checklist

• Pick the board by version: the 2020 game, on PS4 or on a PS5, goes on the Part II board; Remastered goes on the PS5 or PC board.
• On Remastered, switch Speedrun Mode on when you start a New Game or New Game+, and choose Whole Game, Ellie or Abby there. It cannot be switched on mid-playthrough or from chapter select.
• Quit to the main menu before you close the game, every time, to keep the recap checkmark.
• Record your accessibility settings and modifiers before or after the run, plus the Unlocked Framerate setting on PS5 or the Framerate Cap on PC.
• Skip every cutscene and keep total pause time under five minutes.
• On Grounded, answer Yes to the reset prompt, turn off lock-on aiming and show Grounded selected.
• In Glitchless, no out-of-bounds, no Backpack Glitch and no Photo Mode scouting.
• On the 2020 board, read the save file: Ellie% stops when you load in as Abby, and Abby% runs from Chapter Select on The Park to The Farm loading.
• For All Collectibles on Remastered, start a New Game and finish with 236 on the load file.
• Start with Abby%, the shortest split.

More Part II breakdowns are in the versions guide and the PC requirements guide, the rest of the series is on our The Last of Us coverage hub, and everything else is on the Mythras blog.