The original version of the game looked great but still occasionally dipped into the uncanny valley – that’s not the case here.Ĭharacters' facial animations look amazing, regardless of whether it’s in a cutscene or during gameplay.

The climax of the 15-minute prologue showing how the outbreak starts hit harder, thanks in large part to the facial expressions carrying more emotional heft. Naughty Dog has said they were able to go back to the original motion-captured performances and use them as a guide for putting more nuance and emotion into the game. From the very first scene through the end credits, I marveled at the detail and richness of the world Naughty Dog created - it’s a huge upgrade over the original and easily on par with The Last of Us Part II.įor me, the most significant change is in facial animations. Naughty Dog has a reputation for building intricate, vast and beautiful worlds, and as the company’s first PS5 game, The Last of Us Part I continues that tradition. The music and voice performances are lifted straight from the original game, and the direction of cinematic sequences are completely faithful - but when they were so good to begin with, why change it?

Level design and enemy placement is identical to the original, but the enemy AI has been significantly improved, which means some encounters can play out quite a bit differently. It’s a massive visual upgrade over the original, and there are numerous other significant improvements - but the experience of playing the game itself will be extremely familiar to anyone who has experienced The Last of Us on the PS3 or PS4. The Last of Us Part I is a complete rebuild of the game (and its excellent two-ish hour DLC Left Behind), but it’s a bit of a different beast than remakes like Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy VII. Now, two years later, my wish has been granted. When I first played the sequel, I took note of a very brief sequence showing the game’s protagonists Joel and Ellie walking through a ruined city - the vastly improved animation and fidelity of the scene made me want to see more of a world that I had spent so much time in rendered with modern technology. Facial expressions are less lifelike, and the environments, while still beautiful and well-designed, lack a certain level of depth and detail.Īs Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann tells it, the idea for this remake came when they were animating flashbacks for Part II.

But, compared to The Last of Us Part II, which came out in June of 2020, the original shows its age. After all, Naughty Dog remastered the original game in 2014 for the PS4, giving it 1080p graphics at 60 fps, and it still looks solid. Ever since Sony and Naughty Dog announced The Last of Us Part I, a $70, ground-up PS5 remake of the classic 2013 PS3 game, there’s been an intense discussion around whether this even needs to exist.

Last of us 2 character model