We all know this story by now. If you still haven’t enjoyed this decade-old game (originally developed for PlayStation 3), you’ve probably seen HBO Max’s acclaimed adaptation, a fantastic series based on the Naughty Dog title. Certainly no need to warn you to avoid possible spoilers. Still today, The Last of Us is a game that managed to captivate an entire generation of gamers and that redefined the concept of interactive storytelling: what it is, how it is, and what it means to the player.
It goes without saying how much this game means to me and how much it has meant since it came out in the summer of 2013. I would say more, I don’t think I would be writing about video games today if it weren’t for the tremendous instant boost that The Last of Us gave me. Whenever I play other titles that share the same DNA as this story-driven action game (God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Days Gone) I can’t help but think of Joel and Ellie and thank the development team who made them has managed to raise the level of video games so much.
In my own home, the story of Joel and Ellie just grabbed me and didn’t want to let go so many times I lost count. Of course I played The Last of Us again on the highest level of difficulty for my review in 2013 and half a year later. Then the PlayStation 4 remastered version came out and my daughter was born. I played it again and since then I’ve enjoyed it on another occasion (to write the analysis of The Last of Us: Part II). Finally back when the new PlayStation 5 version on which this PC adaptation is based was released. Not satisfied with that, I watched the HBO series twice from start to finish. Still, it’s never enough: I always have to come back to Joel and Ellie’s journey across a shattered America.
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Of course, there are plenty of other games where the story and characters feel real, believable, and even alive. There are many relationships between different characters from multiple titles that manage to capture us, touch our sensitive vein and stay in our hearts. For example, Kratos’ relationship with his son Atreus, Clementine’s relationship with Lee in Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Max and Chloe’s in Life is Strange, or Garrus and Shepard’s in Mass Effect. These are some of the best I can think of, and yet none of them reach the level of perfection shown in The Last of Us. At least in my opinion. How Ellie heals Joel and he saves her, how the two develop a father-daughter relationship after the loss of Joel’s biological daughter… The story and the way it is told always captivates me, I see her and her don’t want to let me go. There are some moments in this game that make me cry every time I see them, and they have a perfect contrast between subtlety and brutality. Beautiful and ruthless at the same time, The Last of Us has a lot of detail and nuance that I can assure you that 99.99% of storytelling focused games don’t have.
By releasing the computer adaptation of this title (the conversion of which was carried out by veteran development studio Iron Galaxy), Sony wanted to make it clear that this is the definitive version of Naughty Dog’s work. It is compatible with AMS FSR 2.2 and Nvidia DLSS, includes V-Sync, a resolution adapted to ultrawide monitors, 3D audio and compatibility with Dualsense and its haptic feedback. It sounds great, but the final product (which costs $59.99, even though it’s a game that’s already 10 years old) isn’t very good. As much as it weighs on my sooty heart, this conversion is an unfinished work.
Iron Galaxy Studios were the ones who created the PC version of Uncharted: Thieves’ Legacy Collection and already in this title we had seen some problems with micro-breaks and poor shadow rendering. There were also serious issues with the monitor update and the fact that such an old game was demanding to run. The same flaws (even worse) apply to The Last of Us: Part I on PC, or what I like to call it, the worst optimized PC port since the gritty GTA trilogy released.
The Last of Us: Part I demands more graphics and processor than any other game our editorial office HP Omen 45L can open, and trying to hit 100 frames per second with working shadows feels like it’s from another era . . Textures don’t load (or load the wrong ones), characters look like they were rendered at 120P for Nintendo 64, Joel and Ellie appear wet during an indoor scene (halfway through the scene, still up), houses disappear complete and the game coughs, gulps, and creaks in such a way that it sounds like an early April Fool’s joke.
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It works quite well in some parts, but that doesn’t matter when the rest of a product that’s been on the market for 10 years is in abysmal condition. Why is that happend? Or rather, how? Iron Galaxy had plenty of time and Sony has unlimited resources to create a good version of its most popular game. As a fan of The Last of Us, I find it unimaginable that something like this could have happened. It’s incomprehensible that this can happen in an action-adventure that deserves the best possible treatment.
If you’re one of those PC gamers who’ve been patiently waiting to experience this acclaimed masterpiece from the comfort of your computer, you should wait or just don’t play it now. There’s a chance that Iron Galaxy and Sony could fix the bugs, but considering how bad the GTA Trilogy for PC still is and all the bugs that remain in other titles like Cyberpunk 2077 (despite years of patching), sorry i don’t think they do.
