For my money, the two best games of the last console generation were Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part 2. While Rockstar Games seems quite happy to march to the beat of its own drum and release remastered iterations of their games a long time after release (the first Red Dead Redemption only just earned an improved PS4 port last year more than thirteen years after its original release), Sony and PlayStation Studios by comparison seem much more eager to provide players with definitive versions of their best games, with the latest example of this being The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered PS5 Review
The Best Game Of The Last Generation Gets Even Better And No Return Is A Real Highlight
Immediately it’s difficult to not draw some parallels between The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered and The Last of Us Part I which released back in September 2022, since both titles essentially represent a re-release of games that had originally landed on shop shelves many years prior. Certainly on the surface of it, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered represents a much more technically modest leap over its original PlayStation 4 release than The Last of Us Part 1 did over its counterpart and there are a number of reasons for this.
First, it’s easy to forget that The Last of Us Part 2 released relatively recently for the PS4 back in June 2020 and already at that point Naughty Dog’s sequel not only looked better than just about every other game on Sony’s last-gen console, but so too did it also look arguably better than some PS5 efforts too. The upshot of this is that quite unlike The Last of Us Part I which introduced massive and clear improvements to character model quality and environmental detail and density, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered was never going to implement a similar set of striking visual changes.
Equally, it’s also worth noting that PS5 owners have been enjoying The Last of Us Part 2 running at 60 frames per second since May 2021, thanks to a patch which doubled the framerate of the PS4 code when played on PS5. This is notable because in many cases whenever a game is typically remastered, an increase in framerate is typically front and center among the visual upgrades that would make a remastered re-release such a compelling proposition in the first place. Nonetheless, while the visual upgrades aren’t quite so stark as those seen in The Last of Us Part I, Naughty Dog has still managed to perform enough nips and tucks with the visual presentation in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered to meaningfully elevate it above its PS4 origins.
For a start, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered now comes in at a full native 4K resolution when played in Fidelity Mode, meaning that the softer image of the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions of the game are now something of a distant memory – so long as you can stomach 30 frames per second. Speaking of which, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered also provides support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) too, meaning that so long as you have a shiny new HDMI 2.1 compliant TV to take advantage of it, you’ll be able to play The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered in fidelity mode with a 40 frames per second target. Relatedly, it’s worth mentioning that while the 40 frames per second target certainly does feel a lot smoother than the regular 30 frames per second target, it’s also less consistent and clearly struggles during scenes where there is a lot going on (though it still performs far better than the 40 frames per second mode in The Last of Us Part I at launch).
Beyond Fidelity Mode, the Performance Mode in The Last of Us 2 Remastered is also superior to the results that the 60 frames per second patch provided to the PS4 version of The Last of Us Part 2 when played on PS5 hardware. Here, not only is the 60 frames per second screen update in Performance Mode completely stable with no visible drops, so too does it provide a sharper image to boot – outputting at a dynamic 4K resolution versus the 1440p of the PS4 Pro code when ran on PS5. Put simply, this isn’t just the sharpest that The Last of Us Part 2 has ever looked, but it’s also the smoothest it has ever ran, too.
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In addition to these improved display modes, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered also packs in a smattering of modest but welcome visual upgrades. As well as increased lighting, shadow and texture resolutions (the individual grey hairs in Joel’s beard have never looked quite so pronounced), The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered also notably boasts improved Level of Detail distance work too, meaning that geometry and elements of the environment that are further away from the camera are rendered in at a higher level detail than they were in the PS4 and PS4 Pro version of The Last of Us Part 2.
All in all however, I also believe that if significant time has passed since you last played The Last of Us Part 2 then you’ll struggle to really notice a lot of these differences – which again plays into the fact that The Last of Us Part 2 was already a technical marvel that was ahead of its time when it released back in 2020, so the gap in visual fidelity is arguably a lot narrower than it was between The Last of Us Remastered and The Last of Us Part 1. Regardless, while the visuals are only really modestly improved over the PS4 version of the game, it’s also still clear that because The Last of Us 2 Remastered is based on source material that has aged so extremely well over the last three years, the extra sheen allows Naughty Dog’s 2020 Game of The Year/Decade to easily stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the best looking games on PS5.
Certainly, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered still boasts some of the best character models in gaming, showcasing such micro-details like the dirt under the fingernails, the fraying of the laces on a pair of sneakers, the individual cotton stitching of Ellie’s shirt and the superb animation blending where each character interacts with both other characters and the environment in a super lifelike way that is utterly convincing. Likewise too the environment art direction and technical design still ranks among the best I have ever seen.
Despite the brutality and nihilism that permeates almost every corner of its setting, the world of The Last of Us 2 Remastered still draws me to it, as it feels both lived in and substantial and is rife with all of the tell-tale signs and bread-crumbed echoes of a recently fallen civilisation. With the Cordyceps fungus at its vanguard, Mother Nature continues to wage her war against humanity and The Last of Us 2 Remastered simply does a stellar job of imagining a deeply wrecked North American realm where Mother Nature is winning in that conflict and you’re forced to pick through the remnants of what came before.
And without going to much into detail about the nuts and bolts of the campaign which remains unchanged from its PS4 incarnation (there’s already a review for that), I still maintain that the story campaign of The Last of Us Part 2 is simply an incredible ride. Broadly speaking, this is because Naughty Dog’s sequel not only does a *great* job of weaponizing the emotions of the player both for and against the seeming protagonists of the game in genuinely thoughtful ways, but so too does it provide an ample, practically peerless theatre of violence where in its epic journey from place to place, the player is permitted a huge amount of creative latitude in how they choose to murder their way through their enemies in a way that no other genre effort can match.
What about the rest of the package? Well, it’s at this point in the review that I’ll say that The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered should really have been titled ‘The Last of Us Part 2 Director’s Cut’, since it certainly feels to me that the meaningful additions that this PS5 version brings to the table are much more heavily weighted towards worthwhile content additions (which we’ll get onto in a minute), rather than solely making substantial leaps with the technical presentation and offering nothing else as a remaster typically would.
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In terms of that fresh content, this is where The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered really soars – both in terms of the quantity and quality of its offering. While the ability to indulge yourself in some independent guitar strumming is all good and well, it’s only a really a nice little gimmick when compared to the rest of the new content additions that Naughty Dog have brought to the table with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
The highlight of this new content offering clearly is No Return, an entirely new single-player, roguelike survival game mode that puts a laser focus on the core stealth and combat mechanics that the base game indisputably does so well. After choosing your character – each of which has their own specific traits, loadouts and overall play styles, you’re presented with a planning board in which the ultimate goal is to defeat a boss enemy at the end and must choose how you get there by picking the battles you wish to fight and following the paths that drive you towards that final battle.
Though the objective in each scenario is largely the same in that you have to kill everything that is thrown at you, every battle in No Return is different to the last thanks to a series of randomised parameters which become more challenging the further you get on your journey to the final boss. Not only does each encounter have vastly different enemies that run the gamut of WLF soldiers, Seraphite hunters, Infected foes and more, but so too does each scenario take place on a different map and has a range of modifications in play which tailor each battle yet further still. Pointedly, those modifications are split into positive and negative varieties and include things like damage bonuses for long shots and melee attacks that set enemies on fire to acid rain and enemies that drop bombs on death. These modifications can also be more subtle too, such as heavy fog, rain and darkness that totally changes how a map looks and plays.
And then, to vary these battles even further, not only are some battles made a little easier by the presence of a supporting character (the planning board can be handily used to identify those scenarios where an ally will appear), but each battle can begin with the enemy either in a state of total awareness of you and will charge your position immediately, or, they won’t know where you are to start with and thus allow you to put your stealth murdering skills into practice. Not only does each battle feel appreciably unique with handy resupply break that provides a welcome breather between each wave of enemies, but so too is there also ample strategy to be had with each encounter because any supplies that you’re able to scavenge during each scenario not only persist from one battle to the next, but between each encounter you will also return to a hideout where you can upgrade your weapons and character for that run from whatever supplies.
Where the roguelike side of things comes into play with No Return is in how progression and the persistence of loot and unlockables are handled. Essentially, if you die during any encounter you lose all of the items, gear and blueprints that you’ve accumulated, while all of the characters, skins, special run types and modifications that you’ve obtained by completing challenges and special encounters persist between playthroughs. As a result, No Return does a great job of not only distilling the combat of The Last of Us Part 2 into a more immediately digestible format, but it also resolutely succeeds in providing ample incentive for players to keep plugging away at the increasingly challenging battles thanks to the aforementioned new characters, modifications and other scenario unlocks.
Easily capable of supporting many hours of compelling play, No Return is not just a fantastic addition to the unparalleled story campaign of The Last of Us Part 2, but it also provides a blueprint for a single-player mode that could very easily stand on its own to an extent and should (but probably won’t – though I hope I’m wrong) receive additional support in the future in the form of new maps, enemies, characters, unlocks and so on. One can hope, eh?
Another worthwhile set of extras that The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered brings is not just a new set of developer commentaries for many of the in-game cutscenes, but also three playable ‘lost’ levels that never made it into the final product. Though it’s clear that these levels aren’t finished and certainly not up to the standard of those that made the cut, they’re still fascinating extra and a real value add to the whole package that certainly underscores its status as a director’s cut in the traditional sense, rather than ‘just’ a remastered re-release.
I feel supremely confident in saying also that for the millions of folks that already own The Last of Us Part 2 on PS4, the $10/£10 upgrade charge is a more than fair ask in terms of the sheer amount of frankly excellent content that you’re getting here – with the excellent No Return mode easily capable of being spun off into its own entity. Likewise, if you have yet to experience Naughty Dog’s magnum opus for the first time, the fact remains that it’s superlative story campaign is as impactful, essential and emotionally devastating as it ever was. Boiled down to its most basic properties, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is the definitive version of the best game of the last generation and as such, it’s still a ten. Easily.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered releases for PS5 on January 19, 2024.
Review code kindly provided by PR.