The Last of Us Part 2 PC Port Review – I’m Tired Boss

How many times can one review a Last of Us game and say something new, or different? At this point, I’ve grown tired of playing the same games time and again across various platforms and editions. What makes it frustrating is that the core games remain as great as they were at launch, though the impact of its story is starting to wear thin. Naughty Dog’s latest re-re-release of The Last of Us is in the form of a PC port of the second game, and by all accounts, it’s the same experience you got on the console version. 

When the first Last of Us came to PC, it was a big moment for PlayStation. Bringing its iconic franchise outside of its proprietary console was surprising, and that’s mostly what occupied my thoughts when reviewing that game. Now, though, the prospect of PlayStation exclusives coming to PC or other platforms isn’t all that enticing, especially when the PC port isn’t doing anything different from the competition.

Fortunately, the second game’s port is in a much better shape than Part 1, though some problems remain. I played the port on a relatively high-end PC, especially compared to the PS5, and my experience was largely smooth. On a system with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM, I was able to crank up all the settings at native 4K and got over 70fps in dense, playable areas. It’s not as impressive as it sounds, as the horsepower required to drive double the performance of a base PS4 game, albeit with increased graphical fidelity, should not require a $1000 GPU.

If you’re here for the numbers, here they are:

Suffice to say, this is a very performant game. There is one small caveat though - the game tends to compile shaders during every load screen, so every time you skip a cutscene, load into the game, start a new mode like “No Return”, expect your CPU to start working out extra hard.

READ MORE - THE LAST OF US PART 2 EXTRACTS THE BEST OF PS4

Besides making the benchmarking experience frustrating, these issues are mostly non-invasive. By most accounts, this is a decent PC port, but it always would have been. My issues lie with other elements such as the relative value of the product with its pricing and the lack of quality-of-life features such as cross-progression.

If this is your first time playing TLOU 2, you’ll enjoy the extra additions like Guitar free-play and the deleted levels. They provide an in-depth look at the thought process that goes into making a game of this scale. Each Lost level will have you exploring the area with a minimal set of features - there’s very little dialogue and you’ll be making pit stops at specific points on the map to listen to developer commentary. The commentary provides an educational look into the process of structuring a video game, providing good reasons for why these levels were ultimately cut. They’re also immensely intriguing for those looking to get into the field. To that end, Naughty Dog will be releasing a full-length documentary on the making of The Last of Us Part 2, the trailer for which is included in the remaster. 

These Lost Levels include the Jackson Party, Boar Hunt, and Sewers. All three levels see Ellie as the only playable character, and provide some fascinating insight into how the game’s narrative was restructured to tell a more concise story. Jackson Party was supposed to be the prelude to Ellie and Dina’s dance that comes near the end of the game and includes a fun new gameplay mechanic where you play as an Infected. Well, you pretend to play as an Infected in an in-universe version of Hide-and-seek with the children at Jackson, which is a neat idea. The screen turns black as you rely on listening to the voices of your “targets”, with the Dualsense controller’s haptic feedback vibrations signifying how close you are to catching the children. If anything, it shows me just how cool a Daredevil game could be when made to take advantage of the PS5’s unique features, now on PC through the DualSense controller.

The other two levels provide insight into the restructuring of the game, with “Boar Hunt” being a big one that tells more of Ellie’s story after her climactic battle with Abby. The level exists to dive further into Ellie’s psyche and the effects that this harrowing story has had on her, but they also don’t include enough depth to be considered a true level. I appreciate the inclusion of these levels and given the upgrade path for the original PS4 release, it’s a cool bonus.

A significant portion of the remaster’s bonus content comprises the new “No Return” mode - a roguelike combat/survival mode that aims to push players to flex their skills in the game. It’s an interesting idea that seems tacked on. The Last of Us Part 2 is a great game, but you’d be hard-pressed to call it a “fun time”. Part of the fun of the roguelike genre is the constant sense of progression that comes from mastering its gameplay mechanics. The combat in The Last of Us 2 is visually impressive, relying heavily on realistic animations and the player’s awareness of environmental elements. No Return aims to tap into that and will be perfect for those who love to create slick edits of their in-game encounters. As a solitary experience, it’s somewhat dreadful.

My issue with the mode though is that its tone and gamified systems clash with the the message and themes of the game itself. In contrast to that, the recently released Valhalla DLC for God of War: Ragnarok manages to use the roguelike mode to comment on Kratos’ internal struggles directly. For a game that’s about ending cycles of violence, the No Return mode exists in an awkward space. The No Return mode’s progression system also provides a hint about what Naughty Dog’s multiplayer TLoU game might have looked like, and if it’s anything close to this then perhaps it was a good decision to cancel it.

The last five paragraphs were lifted from my review of TLOU2 Remastered on PS5, which has since been removed from the original website it was published on. It’s kinda topical, isn’t it? Naughty Dog gets to re-release its game for the umpteenth time, and I get to reuse my quotes from a review of the same.

Verdict

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is a good package that improves the game’s performance and fidelity, with extra content to keep fans happy. PC-exclusive features improve the experience over the console version, though its pricing makes it a tough pill to swallow.

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PLAYSTATION.