The Last of Us: Part II Remastered (PC)

The Last of Us: Part II, released in 2020, was the highly anticipated sequel to 2013's The Last of Us. Since then, Part II has managed to generate revenue for Sony at a rapid pace on several occasions, with the Remastered version slipping out last year on PlayStation, less than four years after the original release. Now comes a port for PC gamers. This work has been carried out by the trusty Nixxes Software, who have once again delivered a product that lives up to expectations. By a magical "coincidence", the first episode of the second season of The Last of Us series will also be released just over a week after the PC release.

The story picks up four years after the events of the first part. Joel and Ellie have made it to safety in the town of Jackson, which has managed to form a medium sized and stable well-guarded mini-society with its bars and services. But they cannot leave their past behind. The grips of revenge reach the couple following events from years ago, resulting in a long journey to Seattle. This time, Ellie's partner in crime is her crush, Dina. The story is also told from multiple points of view, which helps create a less black and white and morally one-sided narrative.

The tear-jerking plot and narrative are still the main reasons to pick up the game. The character building and the brutal narrative are still excellent, and I am not at all surprised that they decided to make the game into a TV series. While I personally find Naughty Dog's Uncharted series more entertaining, its light-hearted adventure tone cannot be compared to the literally torturous atmosphere of The Last of Us.

There's nothing really new about the gameplay mechanics, especially since the world is familiar to most players. The higher the difficulty level you choose, the more essential it becomes to master the stealth mechanics. Even at lower difficulties, Infected and Clickers are dangerous opponents if you don't manage to thin them out before they find you.

My PC gaming experience is likely more forgiving than that of console players, as precise headshots with the help of a mouse are relatively easy—provided enemies don't charge at you at full speed. While resources are always scarce, accurate and ammo-efficient precision shots are an excellent recipe for survival.

Although the story is largely a traditional linear narrative, the world occasionally opens up into semi-open sections before leading players to the next major story event. The early Seattle section, in particular, offers a well-balanced experience: players can either move through it quickly or choose to explore areas like abandoned bank vaults for additional content.

Visually, the game is of an excellent standard, leaving little room for criticism. The graphics settings are extensive, and although I couldn't use Nvidia's optimisation tools during the review period, the visuals were still stunning—without causing my GPU's fans to scream for mercy.

The PC port, in general, is well-executed. My RTX 3080 handled 4K gaming smoothly, provided I was willing to slightly lower some of the more demanding graphical settings. There were only a few isolated moments where the frame rate inexplicably dropped to a crawl, despite no significant action taking place on-screen. Those with more powerful GPUs will naturally be able to enjoy even better visuals.

In addition to the lengthy main storyline, the remaster includes minor extras, such as the No Return survival mode and a guitar-playing feature. However, these additions hold little value in my overall assessment of the game. As the porting is once again done to an excellent standard, the rating is similar to the original and the subsequent Remaster.

The adventure is easy to enjoy, but for me, the only frustrating aspect was its length. Even though I logically understood that this sequel is significantly longer than the first game, the sheer increase in playtime still caught me off guard. For comparison, the runtimes of God of War and Ragnarök are relatively similar. However, in The Last of Us: Part II, the game's length has more than doubled, which drastically alters the pacing. While there are no outright unnecessary moments, I still feel that a more compact story would have sufficed. I suspect most players will disagree with me on this point.

Despite this, the final product is excellent, and my unpopular opinions about game length do not change the fact that this remains - still - one of the greatest video game releases of all-time.