The Last of Us Part I Review
By Alex Eriksen
“You have no idea what loss is,” says Joel, the gruff Texan protagonist of The Last of Us. Those of us that have loved Part I ever since it came out in 2013 might have some idea. The Last of Us as a franchise finds itself in a very awkward position after a sequel that at best could be called “controversial” and at worst thoroughly disappointing. It’s unfortunately unavoidable to review this game without talking about Part II but first let’s cover this remake-remake on the merits.
The Last of Us is the only game I can think of that’s been remastered twice. The previous remake is free to play for PlayStation+ subscribers. They’re asking for $70 for this latest version of the game but is it worth such a steep price? The short answer is no, not for what’s on offer here and especially not when a decent remaster is already available and free for most people. Hell, you could go to any game store and pick up a used copy of the remaster for less than $20. The entire enterprise reeks of a cash grab, especially since this is just a reskin and there are no new features or improvements beyond the visuals.
But if you want the long answer I’m more than happy to indulge you. And if this is the first time (somehow) that you’ve come across the series, here’s a brief synopsis: a deadly fungal infection has swept the world, turning its victims effectively into zombies. The “cordyceps” spreads easily and widely and 60% of the world’s population is dead after first exposure. The remaining uninfected withdraw to crowded and squalid quarantine zones. Martial law is declared but a revolutionary group called “the Fireflies” are searching for a cure.
You, as Joel, take a cross-country journey of redemption in a last ditch effort to save humanity. Along the way you’ll face bandits, all manner of infected horrors, and desolate stretches of wasteland. Along for the ride is Ellie, a 14-year-old girl who may just be the key to saving mankind.
The Re-Remake
The game is divided up into four parts spread out across the seasons of one year. It’s been 20 years since the initial outbreak and most of human civilization has totally collapsed. Cities are overgrown with foliage and mutated horrors stalk the abandoned buildings and streets. The environments are hyper-detailed with tons of unique objects and this kicks into overdrive here - there’s no doubt that this is as good as the game has ever looked.
But beyond that not much has changed. Some will be happy they took the purist approach, others will wish they’d made a few tweaks. Combat, stealth, and exploration are all exactly the same. You’ll pick over the ruins for any resources you can use for some basic crafting and typically won’t have more than a handful of bullets at your disposal. They did bring in the workbench visuals from Part II when upgrading weapons but this, again, is merely a cosmetic addition.
Enemy AI is also fairly predictable but can still be challenging even on normal difficulty. When the difficulty’s dialed up enemies can feel hyper-sensitive and ammo is even more scarce. If you choose to play on hard you’ll be watching the stealth-takedown animation quite a bit and reloading to a checkpoint when the infected or bandits (often) get the better of you.
The Last of Us is pretty standard when it comes to 3rd person action but it’s easy to mistake its familiarity with other games. This was the original blueprint for so many of those others that have since come and gone.
The gameplay, puzzles, and fighting all show their age but are serviceable enough. I applaud the team for preserving the game as it was and for not cutting any puzzles, which do feel dated but harken back to an earlier era of gaming. You’ll get tired of moving planks, pallets, and ladders to get over obstacles but it works well enough to mix up the gameplay when you’re not fighting or exploring.
Not Much of an Improvement
I share some of the general grumblings among gamers about there being zero improvements brought to the game. You get used to the combat after a while but it certainly could have used an overhaul. You sway around like a drunken sailor while aiming and need to purchase costly upgrades just to bring it down to a normal level. This, I suppose, was meant to make the game more challenging but Joel being from Texas you’d figure his shooting hand would be steadier.
Hand-to-hand and melee combat still feels visceral and raw with outstanding kill animations. Caving in an infected’s face with a lead pipe still feels equally satisfying and gross. Gunshot wounds and explosives are just as gory but in keeping with the original.
The popular Factions multiplayer mode is missing so fans of that will sadly not get a chance to play it with shiny new visuals. Among the additions though are new game modifiers like unlimited ammo and exploding arrows, as well as new filters to see the game through. If you ever wanted to play it in black and white or in 8-bit, this is your chance.
There’s also some director’s commentary over the cutscenes but there isn’t much substance there, just a few anecdotes from the cast and from Neil Druckmann. There’s a documentary about the making of the game included as well as concept art but all of this is already free online. It would have been nice if we’d gotten some new content that didn’t affect the core story, like a DLC episode with Bill, Tess, or Tommy, but at the very least you will get the original Left Behind DLC included.
Part I is a true masterpiece and despite coming out nearly a decade ago, the core design shines through. The characters, pacing, mechanics, gameplay and level design are all unmatched. Anyone who wants to know how games are made should study The Last of Us closely. It is a beautiful game full of hope, pathos, suffering, and redemption. It’s a stained glass window in a thousand-year-old cathedral. And sadly, Part II is the brick that smashed it to pieces.
The “Controversial” Sequel
At this point I’m going to get into spoilers for Part I and II. You should be able to make an assessment on the first half of this review as to whether buying a copy is something you’d be interested in. If you want to go deeper into why recommending or not recommending the remake is complicated, read on.
Despite a small vocal minority who label Part II a “masterpiece”, the final results speak for themselves. The game is frequently on sale for bargain bin prices, online critics have eviscerated its threadbare story, and even Sony has banished the game from use in any and all of its marketing for PS5. Part II is noticeably absent from the PlayStation+ catalog of hit titles like the original Last of Us, Days Gone, or Horizon Zero Dawn. It clearly isn’t helping the company sell consoles.
Audiences at large seem to have rejected the sequel for its injection of modern woke politics, plot that operates entirely on coincidences, and fetishism for hardcore violence. Out of 100 million PlayStation owners, only maybe 10% have played Part II. Ouch.
Compared to the first game with engagement as high as 50% of all PlayStation owners - this clearly shows something is rotten in Denmark when it comes to Part II. The only thing controversial to me about the sequel is how so many game journalists could either lie to themselves or their readers when it came to reviewing it, but I suspect advertising deals with Sony bought many of the 10/10 review scores that fans of the game brandish like a shield against all criticsm.
If you want more evidence the game isn’t a 10/10, look at the financials. Part II was an utter flop after costing north of $100 mil to produce (and likely more to advertise). The ten million sales we know about, and only four million at launch at full price, means Naughty Dog only pocketed 50-100 million after making back the budget.
Likely that number falls on the lower end of that scale as the game hit just $20 a copy a year after launch - a first for a PlayStation exclusive. However much they made exactly will remain a mystery but it’s a fraction of what Part I earned. Conservative estimates put the total revenue of the first game near half a billion dollars.
The studio went silent after Part II’s much maligned reception and game director Neil Druckmann was shuttled into a VP role at the studio, presumably to prevent any more damage being done to what was once a franchise worth hundreds of millions of dollars and is now worth considerably less. Druckmann’s defiant tone on social media and in interviews haven’t helped improve the studio’s fortunes.
Joel’s ignominious death in Part II will go down in history as one of the most bungled decisions in gaming history. And replaying his journey only further cements my belief that the creative development of the sequel was the equivalent of the Hidenberg crashing into a train hauling a hundred cars full of burning garbage.
The Thrill is Gone
Part II retcons the events of Part I and paints Joel as a selfish, violent murderer who sacrifices the cure for the cordyceps for his own emotional needs. Forgetting the fact that the entire point of the first game is that large organizations almost inevitably dissolve into fascism during a crisis, and that belief in the government, the Fireflies, or a tribal leader are all just a part of the same mirage seen from different angles. The sacredness of the individual is what the authority of the state exists to defend - and violating that is the worst kind of betrayal.
You could also argue that the chances of developing a cure from Ellie’s brain was a long-shot in such a run-down hospital that hadn’t been restocked in 20 years. That and the fact that there was no way to mass-produce such a vaccine, much less distribute it. Joel’s actions are 100% justified and the repainting of him as a villain is pure gaslighting. And if you play the game again, and you’re honest, you’ll likely come to the same conclusion.
Joel’s story begins with loss and ends with hope. He is the classic archetype of the reawakened hero, one who transcends his suffering in order to live again. It’s as beautiful as it is complex, as the narrative strands are woven tightly around every level, set piece, and encounter. Good people die, you’ll witness the stories of countless others who tried but didn’t make it, and you’ll feel in the end how survival means nothing if you don’t have something to survive for.
What The Last of Us achieved has never been duplicated in a video game. There are many that draw inspiration - Red Dead Redemption, Days Gone, God of War - but none have come close to the heights this game will take you.
Which is, again, why it’s such a shame Part II plays out the way it does. I couldn’t help but get less out of the experience on what was probably my tenth playthrough of Part I. Knowing Joel’s ultimate fate, how he winds up just another dead body in a world packed with corpses, takes a measure of dignity out of his struggle. And that we’re asked to sympathize with his killer is just ludicrous - a cheap gimmick played for shock value.
And for Ellie, a character who embodies so much hope and potential, to be utterly destroyed in a fruitless quest for revenge is a massive waste of the hard work that went into building her up in Part I. By the end of Part II she loses everything and wanders off into the woods alone. Only the final season of Game of Thrones reached a similar anti-climax - and likewise that franchise has died a brutal death.
I noticed a key difference between the two games since now that they’re essentially identical visually. When I’m playing as Joel I feel a clear sense of purpose, of the stakes, which makes the moment to moment gameplay exciting and engrossing. Every close call, every gunfight, every swarm of infected you narrowly escape from makes you feel a genuine sense of satisfaction.
Playing Part II I feel nothing, especially in the sections where you play as Abby, Joel’s killer. I don’t care about her, actually want her to get her comeuppance, and don’t see her as sympathetic whatsoever. The game makes the case that she’s a good person but would a good person be reduced to torture and murder? Is there a road back from such acts? Any comparisons to Joel are purely bad faith as he only ever kills in self-defense. Oh and Part II features probably the worst sex scene ever recorded.
The Part I remake is very pretty to look at, but visuals weren’t what made the original great and add very little to the experience here. Part II’s impressive visuals pushed the PS4 to its absolute limits, but an 8K high rez photo of trash is still a photo of trash (see above photo). You can give me all the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” speeches you like but don’t you dare at the same time use objective language like “masterpiece” to describe Part II.
The remake is a fine experience for anyone who’s never played Part I, but as I said before you can still get a great experience out of the last remake and save your $70 for Elden Ring.
At the end of the day I can’t help but feel the only reason this exists is because of Part II’s creative and financial failure. You can say “game of the year” as many times as you like but it won’t change the fact that Part II is destined for the dustbin of gaming history. So, what then, are we to salvage from Part I?
There’s still enough here to praise but a $40 price point would have been more appropriate - especially since the studio is coming hat in hand to the original fans and asking them to buy this after arguably what was one of the worst mishandlings of a fan community in history. But, sadly, I can’t help but feel Naughty Dog’s best days are behind them. Part II was a wound too great to recover from and this Naughty Dog should be put down. As a fan of nearly all of their games it pains me to say that.
Unless Neil Druckmann is willing to resign and apologize for lying to fans with a phony trailer model-swapping Joel to make it appear as if he had a major role in Part II or to YouTubers who had their channels DMCA’d for discussing leaked, and therefore public, material, I can’t see a path back to greatness for Naughty Dog. I personally wouldn’t recommend you giving the company any money purely based on their questionable conduct.
Re-releasing their classic game without a hint of recognition of the category-five shitstorm they stirred up with Part II feels like a missed opportunity at closure. What they’re essentially saying is: “give us your money and we will not offer any guarantees we will improve in the future.” And this is after Druckmann said “trust us, we’ll do right by you” and then proceeded to essentially call anyone who criticized Part II a bigot.
Cashing in on their greatest franchise feels like an act of desperation. The Last of Us is effectively dead, so for someone like me who loved Part I, despised Part II, and found Druckmann’s conduct to be highly unethical, this does feel a bit like salt being rubbed in our wounds. No other studio on earth is in a position like this, which has made reviewing this game anything but a straightforward affair.
For what it’s worth, the core of the story is still there, and should remain a focus in the eye of every gamer who wants the artform to go as far as it possibly can: hope endures, salvation can be earned, and in the greatest darkness it’s the smallest light that can still shine through. But sadly, for Naughty Dog, that light went out a long time ago.
Final Score: 6.5/10
Pros
Great visuals
Tour de force story and world-building
Outstanding music, voice acting, sound
Cons
Priced way too high
Visuals aren’t that big of an upgrade
No factions mode
Still some clunky mechanics that could have been fixed