The Last Of Us Pt 1 remake review: Enough upgrades to leave us stunned
Enlarge / This moment from The Last Of Us Pt 1 was captured as a real-time cinematic on PlayStation 5. All images of the PS5 version were directly captured by Ars Technica, except where noted (though Sony's own supplied screens are in line with how the game looks on current-gen hardware). (credit: Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
A little over a decade ago, developer Naughty Dog diverged from its base of amusing, swashbuckling video games by revealing its most intense project yet: The Last of Us. The game's first-look trailer, which premiered at E3 2012, appeared almost too good to be true.
In some ways, this new series looked like the stunning Uncharted games we'd already seen on the PlayStation 3. It was full of realistic characters, detailed environments, and convincing movie-like dialogue. But this wasn't a shooting gallery interrupted by wild train sequences and epic climbs up mountains. Instead, TLOU appeared to host the tensest and most brutal combat ever seen on a gaming console. A camera dramatically swung around two survivors of an apocalypse, and these resource-starved protagonists tiptoed around dangerous foes (humans and zombies alike), always one low-on-ammo gun jam or wrong step away from certain doom.
One year later, the game launched to accolades and high sales figures, but it didn't quite resemble that dramatically staged "real gameplay" trailer. The final game's enemy AI, battle choreography, and presentation of player choices felt more video gamey than we saw in the trailer.
I remembered that old sense of disappointment while I played The Last Of Us Pt. 1, this week's PS5 remake of the 2013 original. Honestly, there were moments while I tested this note-for-note remake where I felt adrift, enough so that I saw cracks in its handsome, "current-gen" facade. This is not a perfect remake, and it may leave both new players and Naughty Dog diehards disappointed in some respects.