By now we all know this story. If you didn’t enjoy this decade-old game (originally made for PlayStation 3), you’ve probably seen the acclaimed HBO Max adaptation, a fantasy series based on the Naughty Dog title. Surely there is no need to warn you to avoid possible spoilers. The Last of Us is still today a game that managed to hypnotize an entire generation of players and that redefined the concept of interactive storytelling: what is it, how it is and what it involves. for the player.
It goes without saying how much this game means to me and how much it has since the summer of 2013 when it was released. I would even say more, I don’t think I would be writing about video games today if it weren’t for the instant huge boost that The Last of Us gave me. Whenever I play other titles that share the same DNA with this story-driven action game (God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Days Gone), I can’t help but think of Joel and Ellie and to thank the development team that created them has been so successful in raising the bar of video games.
In my own home, Joel and Ellie’s story caught up with me and wouldn’t let go, so many times I lost count. Of course, I played The Last of Us for my 2013 review and again six months later on the highest difficulty. Then the remastered version for PlayStation 4 came out and my daughter was born. I played it again and since enjoyed it on another occasion (to write the analysis for The Last of Us: Part II). Finally, again when the new version for PlayStation 5 is released, on which this PC adaptation is based. Not happy with that, I watched the HBO series from start to finish twice. However, it’s never enough: I always need to go back to Joel and Ellie’s journey through a bruised 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 grab 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 relationship in Life is Strange, or Garrus and Shepard’s relationship in Mass Effect. These are some of the best I can think of, and yet none of them quite reach the perfection shown in The Last of Us. At least in my opinion. The way Ellie heals Joel and he saves her, how the two form a father-daughter relationship after the loss of Joel’s biological daughter… The story and the way it is told captivates me every time. I see her and she doesn’t want to let me go. There are quite a few moments in this game that bring me to tears every time I see them and they have the perfect contrast of subtlety and brutality. The Last of Us is beautiful and unforgiving at the same time and includes a lot of detail and nuance that I can assure you 99.99% of story-driven games lack.
By publishing the computer adaptation of this title (whose conversion was carried out by the experienced development studio Iron Galaxy), Sony made it clear that this is the definitive version of the work of Naughty Dog. It is compatible with AMS FSR 2.2 and Nvidia DLSS, includes V-Sync, resolution suitable for ultra-wide monitors, 3D audio and compatibility with Dualsense and its haptic feedback. It sounds good, but the final product (which costs 59.99 euros, even though it’s a game that’s already 10 years old) isn’t very good. As much as it weighs on my soot-black heart, this conversion is an unfinished business.
Iron Galaxy Studios created the PC version of Uncharted: Thieves’ Legacy Collection, and already in this title we saw issues with micro-dropouts and poor shadow rendering. There were also serious issues with updating the monitor and the fact that such an old game required such high requirements to run. The same (in fact, even worse) flaws apply to The Last of Us: Part I on PC, or as I’d like to call it, the least optimized PC port since the infamous GTA trilogy was released.
The Last of Us: Part I demands more on graphics card and processor than any other game our HP Omen 45L can open in the editorial, and trying to hit 100fps with working shadows looks like to something from another era. . Textures not loading (or loading wrong), characters appear to be rendered at 120P for Nintendo 64, Joel and Ellie appear wet during an interior scene (halfway through the scene, still on top), the houses disappear completely and the game coughs, hoots and squeaks in such a way that it looks like a first April Fool’s prank.
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In some parts it works well enough, but that doesn’t matter when the rest of a product that’s been on the market for 10 years is in terrible shape. Why did this happen? Or rather, how? Iron Galaxy has had plenty of time and Sony has unlimited resources to make a good version of its most beloved game. As a fan of The Last of Us, I find it inconceivable that such a thing could have happened. It’s incomprehensible how this can happen with an action adventure that deserves the best possible treatment.
If you’re one of those PC gamers patiently waiting to experience this acclaimed masterpiece from the comfort of your computer, you should wait, or just don’t play it just yet. There’s a chance that Iron Galaxy and Sony will fix the bugs, but given how bad the GTA Trilogy for PC is and all the bugs that still exist in other titles like Cyberpunk 2077 (despite years of fixes), I’m sorry. I don’t think they do.
