The Last of Us: Part II Remastered PC Review - Just As Haunting in Ultra-Hi Def
I said I wouldn’t do this.
I said I wouldn’t find myself here again.
Yet here I am, subjecting myself to it all once more.
The Last of Us: Part II has arrived on PC and I have, despite saying in my original review that this was the greatest game I never wanted to play again, I have done exactly that. I told myself it was just to continue checking out Sony’s move into the PC space, but the reality was, I wanted to experience it all over again. I wanted to hurt, I wanted to feel, I wanted to be uncomfortable and no game ticks all of those boxes like this one. Am I glad I played it again? Well, I am not sure, it is still too fresh, but there is no denying this is a once-in-a-lifetime game that everyone should experience and thanks to this PC port, more people can.
I am still going to avoid spoilers, despite the game’s age. Those who have played the game before will know why and those who haven’t will understand once they do. But it is important to know that this is a game that lives in an uncomfortable space. There are no good humans here, just varying shades of survivors who will do anything to make it through another day in this bleak future. The two lead characters, Ellie and Abbey are both thoroughly unlikeable for a lot of the game and it makes playing as them, committing the acts they commit all the more confronting. I stand by that this is a game that needs trigger warnings because there is a lot here that could potentially upset people, especially with pre-existing trauma-related conditions.
But like some of the very best media of our time, Movies like American History X and Life is Beautiful or Books like The Road, sometimes a bleak, depressing and upsetting story needs to be told and needs to be experienced. I place The Last of Us: Part II in this company. I once again finished this game feeling hollow and frustrated at the futility of the lead character’s plight. There are a host of themes touched on here, things like equality, religion and militarisation, but the overriding message is that the pursuit of vengeance can cost more than you are willing to pay. This message is drilled into the player right up until the final scene and frankly, it stayed with me for hours after.
Gameplay is that beautiful mix of survival, stealth, adventure and action that Naughty Dog pioneered with the first game. All of the systems work well with each other and the two lead characters play differently enough that it is easy to see their individual strengths and weaknesses. All of this occurs in a stunning world that is as brutal as it is beautiful. The amount of detail that Naughty Dog has jammed into this game still astounds me to this day. Every quiet corner, every nook and cranny seems to tell a story, a story that fleshes out this harsh world. Forget scavenging for supplies, the real reason to explore is to learn more.
These are all things I spoke about in my original PS4 review, but the question now is, how does it all hold up on a more powerful platform? This is a port of the PS5 remastered edition of the game and now it has even more juice under the hood to shine in the presentation aspect. Ultrawide resolutions or 4K 120 if your rig can handle it, improved lighting and reflections and higher detail textures are just some of the improvements on offer. For the most part it all adds and improves to the game, though I do feel it went too far on the film grain effect by default. Thankfully I could turn it down a few notches to something that didn’t look so scratchy.
But as things tend to turn out, it wouldn’t be a Sony port without some issues. The good news is though, this is no Spider-man 2 or The Last of Us: Part 1 equivalent. Everything here works pretty well with only minor issues popping up from time to time. I noticed some framerate drops in the game, especially in cutscenes after playing for longer than an hour, there were some funny graphical glitches like floating weapons and some warping enemies and there were a few occasions of texture pop-in that made me cringe. All that said, I expect most of these issues to be ironed out very soon after launch if they aren’t already fixed in the day one patch. On the rollercoaster that is Sony PC ports, this one is towards the peak.
As far as lower-spec systems go, it ran pretty well on my ROG Ally X and the game is Steam Deck Verified. I managed to get a solid 30fps on a mix of medium and low graphical settings which isn’t too bad on the smaller screen. On the whole, I would say that playing on the Ally was a similar experience to the PS4 release which frankly, is pretty darn good. Ideally though, this is a game that should be played on the biggest screen you can find with a whopping big surround sound system, but if this is how you would like to play it, you won’t be missing out on too much.
So I am here again, I have played it again and I am once again left heartbroken and empty. The Last of Us: Part II is an absolute key point in AAA game history and I am not sure we will ever see its like again. The PC port is a pretty good one all things considered, with only a few minor graphical and framerate hiccups taking a little of the shine off the launch version of the game. So if you have yet to experience this game, or like me you think enough time has passed and your emotional wounds have healed, the PC version will certainly do the game justice. It can’t be said enough, but Naughty Dog has created a masterpiece here. A brutal, hellish and uncomfortable masterpiece, but a masterpiece all the same.
The Last of Us: Part II Remastered was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
