The Last of Us has always been a game that, in some way or other, has been defined by
its tech.
This is probably not the way its creators want you, the player, thinking about it—they’d
rather have you in the moment; envisioning this rich, vibrant narrative experience at
the heart of a tense survival-horror stealth action game.
And don’t get me wrong, it is that, it’s genuinely one of the best games ever made
in my opinion – but so much of its lasting success lies in those nuts and bolts, as much
as it does in the script or the mechanics.
A great deal of its narrative impact, for example, comes from those little moments,
those palpably pregnant pauses, where a character won’t say anything, but an errant glance
at a broken watch will send all kinds of questions cascading through your head about what that
character is thinking—a glance whose power, whose beautiful ambiguity, is arguably only
made possible thanks to Naughty Dog’s industry-leading facial animation and capture tech; rivalled
only by a company like Rockstar in the detail on show.
All this to say that, when you have a game whose main pull is its storytelling (both
in cutscenes and its often frantic gameplay), and whose tech was already so core to conveying
that moment-to-moment narrative, when you go to the lengths that Naughty Dog clearly
has in its upcoming remake of that original game—in upgrading The Last of Us' tech in
nearly every conceivable way—you can’t help but fundamentally alter how a player
experiences that narrative.
And look, before we go further, I understand the very prevalent backlash that this game’s
eye-watering price tag of 65 quid has garnered, I really do—further encouraged by developer
remarks stating that the gameplay of the original would remain untouched, leading many to question
in what world that price point is justified.
I get it, and we’ll come onto whether you should take the plunge or not later on—there
are valid reasons as I see it for you to hold off—but it speaks to just how substantial
these visual and technical upgrades are (something I’m usually not super bothered about) that
as a long-time fan, I feel like, despite the developer’s comments to the contrary, the
texture, the feel of a game I revisited just two years ago has shifted dramatically.
I’ve been noticing things in its story I never picked up on before, I’ve been playing
in a noticeably different way.
Whatever your thoughts are on the commerce side of things, it becomes clear almost immediately
that The Last of Us Part 1 is a changed entity—one that, to me, as someone who, bear in mind,
didn’t have to pay for a copy (PlayStation sent me review code), I found to be a remarkably
exciting prospect.
And of course, the most obvious place to start with this is in those drastically upgraded
facial animations—because let me tell you, if this stuff was industry-leading before,
here it’s reached another level entirely.
Like look, I have no problem with video game violence, but if you thought that Sarah scene
was hard to watch before, now it’s downright distressing—the generally pained expression
found in the original morphing into all these panicked little looks and twitches as this
girl fails to make sense of what’s just happened to her, making the blank look, teardrop
and all, that suddenly greets her anguished dad, all the more stark.
To paraphrase what my pal Jordan Middler at VGC said to me, turns out watching the life
drain from a wee lassie’s eyes, in this level of excruciating detail, is about as
far from pleasant as one can get.
Or, hell, anyone’s eyes for that matter – stealth killing an enemy, infected or
otherwise, now treats you to a smorgasbord of truly harrowing facial expressions as they
desperately, painfully gasp for air, until that moment where they just… give up; those
eyes that were previously darting around as Sarah’s were, convincingly searching for
any way out, just roll to the back of their head as they slump to the ground; all rendered
in fidelity that goes beyond that of even The Last of Us Part Two, in silky smooth 60fps!
In all seriousness, The Last of Us was already a game that forced you into uncomfortable
proximity with the brutality of this world, and the intimacy of violence that resulted
from that, but whereas before I merely found it interesting how the game incentivised engaging
in this violence, in killing rather than just sneaking past encounters (I mean, an empty
battlefield lets you freely scout for much-needed supplies), here I found myself actively fighting
that mechanical incentive.
I was all too glad to stealth my way past as many enemies as I could, even if it meant
less crafting materials down the line, because I just didn’t want to have to witness this
stuff any more than I absolutely had to.
This is what I mean when I say the visual upgrades change the very nature of the game—again,
you’re pressing the same buttons in order to make your character do, ostensibly, the
same things they did nine years ago, but I’d be willing to bet the effect it has on most
players will have changed considerably.
I mean, even pressing those same buttons is, itself, functionally distinct from the original
thanks to the controller you’re pressing them on.
Indeed, aside from its world-class animations, the implementation of the DualSense here is
immediately top tier, with maybe the best use of the adaptive triggers seen in any game
amongst Sony’s line-up; fully utilising the device’s potential as a tonal and storytelling
aid, in the way I’ve previously discussed my desire for at length.
See, besides the impressive directionality of haptic feedback felt across the controller—where,
say, Sarah nuzzling into a couch sends a subtle enough buzz through the handles that you get
an actual, physical feeling of pre-outbreak comfort that’s about to be violently replaced
with the violent judders of explosions and gunshots—the triggers during said gunfights
require legitimate effort to pull, as if you were holding, firing a real, heavy piece of
machinery.
It’s to the point that, in amongst the still utterly thrilling chaos of enemies rapidly
flanking my position as my best laid stealth plans inevitably went to pot, I found early
on that I couldn’t make certain shots because I wasn’t pulling down hard enough.
In amongst the frenzy and panic, the DualSense doesn’t let you dilly dally through encounters,
humming and hawing about whether you should take your chance on that shot, as if you could
just effortlessly pile more into that enemy’s general direction should you miss – instead,
it demands a kind of ruthless confidence in your decision making; it demands you inhabit
the role of this man hardened by 20 years of cold, brutal struggle.
Even putting that heightened tactility to one side though, it really bears repeating
just how crucial the rejigged visuals are in conveying that struggle.
For example, in the original, I always found it odd how little Joel seemed to have aged
in the two decades separating the Sarah incident from where we later find him—perhaps a comment
on how stressful life always was as a single dad trying to make ends meet.
Here, though, you see every one of those twenty years in his updated appearance—his hair
is comparatively ashen to the jet black we now see before; the fatigue from decades of
implied horror etched into his facial features like the rings of an oak tree.
Joel has seen some shit in his time, and the game’s heightened attention to detail ensures
that, even just by glancing at him, this is an inescapable fact.
But that’s the thing too, while I typically associate the detail of the original game’s
animation-focused storytelling with this kind of deep longing or abject sadness – you
know, the aforementioned watch scenes, getting you to ask all these questions about how that
trauma still hangs likes a tarpaulin, and the mental gymnastics Joel is having to do
in the moment, to hide the effect it’s clearly still having on him – the increase in fidelity
means that this sadness is far from the only emotion being captured through a character’s
face now.
It’s that specific eye twitch of exasperation when someone tells you a piece of information
you just can’t be arsed hearing; the slight stretching of the skin as Joel exhaustedly
rubs his face; it’s a character getting distracted by something in the distance while
they’re talking to you; it’s those tantalisingly brief moments where Ellie will crack a shite
joke and, in amongst the barbarity of day-to-day survival, Joel will allow the slightest of
smirks to crack through his lips before returning to Cold Dad Stoicism.
It’s become cliché over the years to say that a game looks borderline photorealistic,
but I can’t remember a title that comes close to matching these immeasurably subtle
movements and the amount of information they convey—it legitimately looks like real people
acting now, with all the humanity and horror that brings.
I mean, thanks to the new visuals begging me to stop and stare at everything around
me, it brought a whole new significance to the game’s environments.
Like, it only really struck me this playthrough, that you enter into the gallery part of the
history museum through some kind of art restoration facility underneath – all these works left
in various stages of completion and preservation, left to rot once more as the length of time
they’ve been lying there, the elements they’ve been exposed to as nature starts to claw itself
back against civilisation, all becomes extremely apparent.
Previously I treated areas like this as mere corridors – now, they’re lived in places,
each room its own character with its own past life.
All of this stuff is absolutely incredible… and yet, if what I’ve talked about so far
regarding technology and storytelling doesn’t fill you with the same kind of excitement…
I think you are completely justified in your desire to skip this.
We live in a world ravaged by ongoing, worsening economic instability; where more people are
having to choose between heating, rent and food; the price of a PS5 is increasing in
many regions, and here we have a remake of an already-remastered game that isn’t even
a decade old yet, asking for 65 quid.
That is a lot of money for a game that a) hasn’t been out long enough to get most
people wistfully looking back and clamouring for a more modern way to play and b) is still
readily accessible, still incredible, on multiple different systems.
Like I say, I get it.
But as a long time fan, I see this remake as more of a boutique product—intended for
the most hardcore of hardcore fans or people just getting into the game for the first time
who want the absolute best experience of it.
The Last of Us is still an utterly vital masterpiece as far as I’m concerned, and if you can
justify the steep cost of entry, Part One is now the definitive way to experience it.
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