The Last of Us Part 1 Review: Enduring and Surviving on PS5

Ever since the existence of The Last of Us Part 1 leaked last year, I've been firmly in the camp that believed Naughty Dog's iconic PlayStation game didn't need to be remade on PlayStation 5. Even though I love The Last of Us and have enjoyed regularly revisiting it since its initial release in 2013, I felt that a full-blown remake for PS5 seemed to be a waste of time for Naughty Dog, especially since The Last of Us Remastered on PS4 is a more-than-adequate way to still play the game. Having now played The Last of Us Part 1 for myself, though, I have found my tune changing quite a bit. While this is a remake that probably doesn't need to exist, I'm more than happy that Naughty Dog has opted to bring The Last of Us forward to make the game better than ever before.

As expected, the biggest selling point of The Last of Us Part 1 is that it has been graphically revamped on PS5. Initially, I thought that The Last of Us Remastered looked great by modern standards, but Part 1 has only shown me how wrong I was to think this. The latest version of The Last of Us doesn't just meaningfully improve the game's resolution, textures, and lighting, but it also freshens up essentially every environment that you'll jaunt through with Joel and Ellie. Each level in the game looks similar to past iterations of The Last of Us, but there's so much more detail and depth to the locales in Part 1. 

To go along with these improvements, The Last of Us Part 1 is also able to consistently perform at 60fps at a dynamic 4K resolution. This mode, which is the game's Performance option, makes for an incredibly smooth experience while still looking stunning. A Fidelity mode is also available and lets The Last of Us Part 1 run at native 4K instead. You really can't go wrong with either mode, but for me, I didn't think that the slight dip in resolution was worth the frame rate trade-off.

When it comes to the visual upgrades seen in The Last of Us Part 1, far and away the thing that impressed me the most came with the game's character models. Joel, Ellie, and all of the other familiar characters in the story have received literal facelifts. Facial animations and expressions in The Last of Us Part 1 are likely the best I have ever seen in a video game and make the performances from the game's cast that much better and more believable. What truly blew me away with this aspect of The Last of Us Part 1 came with just how subtle some of the character expressions now are. While the grand, emotionally impactful parts of The Last of Us hit harder than ever before, it was the smaller one-on-one moments between characters that stood out to me the most this time around, largely due to what the facial models are now capable of. 

Likely the biggest disappointment for me with The Last of Us Part 1 is that there have been minimal improvements to gameplay. In a general sense, I don't think that the gameplay mechanics from The Last of Us have aged all that poorly, but compared to what is seen in Part 2, it does make the original installment a bit harder to go back to. The most notable change to gameplay in Part 1 comes with improved AI for the enemies that you'll face. As someone who played on Survivor difficulty throughout both the core game and Left Behind, I did notice that foes were much more strategic with how they would approach a combat situation. Notably, I got flanked far more often in The Last of Us Part 1 than I can ever recall in the original game or Remastered. Additionally, companion AI in the remake is far more stealthy and won't blatantly step out of cover to reveal themselves. These gameplay alterations are subtle, but they do help with Part 1's sense of immersion, especially when accounting for the aforementioned environmental improvements. 

Outside of moment-to-moment gameplay, Naughty Dog has also made a handful of smaller tweaks to The Last of Us Part 1 that were seen in Part 2. Joel's process of upgrading weapons now plays out in an animated fashion, similar to what was seen with Ellie in The Last of Us Part 2. Additionally, collectibles that you pick up in the game have become physical items that Joel and Ellie can look at in their own hands. While some of the bigger features seen in The Last of Us Part 2 weren't added to Part 1 (improved melee system, the ability to go prone, etc.) it is good to see that Naughty Dog tried to incorporate some qualities that were found in the sequel. 

As someone who has played The Last of Us quite a few times over the years, I did find it somewhat annoying that Part 1 locks a number of additional features behind the requirement of first beating the game before becoming accessible. Considering that Part 1 will likely be a return playthrough of The Last of Us for many, to have to first play the entire game once again before being able to try out the new Permadeath or Speedrun options feels a bit short-sighted on Naughty Dog's part. What's even worse is that PlayStation did give players the option to unlock Speedrun mode prior to completing the game, but this perk is only being included as an added bonus to those who buy the Digital Deluxe and Firefly Editions of The Last of Us Part 1. Even with this frustration, Speedrun and Permadeath mode didn't feel like they added a ton to The Last of Us, although it still would have been nice if these features and many others weren't locked from the get-go.

One of the things that has been most divisive about The Last of Us Part 1 is its $70 price tag. This is something that I've been critical of as well, primarily because it seemed like PlayStation wasn't doing enough with this remake to justify the cost. While I've now played Part 1, it's hard for me to speak to whether or not this game is worth the asking price. What I can stress is that The Last of Us Part 1 is a very high-quality product. Even though the Factions multiplayer mode has been removed and there's little else of note in regard to new additions, it's clear that  Naughty Dog went above and beyond to make the visual improvements to The Last of Us so remarkable that it doesn't feel as though you're getting "ripped off", per se, by buying the game at full retail price. Your own mileage may vary in this regard, though. 

I also just have to say that as a whole, I do believe that The Last of Us is still Naughty Dog's best game to date. Although it's nearing 10 years old, this title still holds up remarkably well from a storytelling and gameplay standpoint, and in many ways, continues to set the standard for what third-person action games are capable of. To know that The Last of Us will now age even better thanks to this new remake is something that I'm happy about, especially since an entire new audience might be exposed to the game by proxy of the television adaptation coming to HBO next year. 

The best thing I can say about The Last of Us Part 1 is that it meets Naughty Dog's previous claim: this is absolutely the definitive edition of the game. Not only do the improved graphics, lighting, and animations make for a better throughline experience, but they also add more emotional resonance to Joel and Ellie's story than ever before. In the brief history of the PS5, The Last of Us Part 1 is one of the most visually impressive games that I've played so far and it makes me that much more excited to see what Naughty Dog does with its next wholly new project for the platform. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Last of Us Part 1 is set to release later this week on September 2, 2022, for PlayStation 5. An advance copy of the game was provided by PlayStation for the purpose of this review.