Naughty Dog Shows Off More Gorgeous ‘The Last Of Us: Part I’ PS5 Remake Footage, Confirms A Bunch Of New Features

Games Naughty Dog Shows Off More Gorgeous ‘The Last Of Us: Part I’ PS5 Remake Footage, Confirms A Bunch Of New Features Kris Holt Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I cover all things games, especially Overwatch. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jul 21, 2022, 09:52pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Naughty Dog has rebuilt The Last Of Us Part I for PS5. Naughty Dog/PlayStation Studios On the surface, it was a little odd for Naughty Dog to release an in-depth look at its The Last of Us: Part I remake for PS5 at 8PM ET on a Thursday . It makes a little more sense when you consider there’s been a torrent of leaks about the game over the last few days.

A lengthy video breaking down the remake and the features it adds to the 2013 classic was already in the works before the leaked images and footage started popping up. Still, it’s strange to see Sony releasing the info so late in the day. Anyway, the nearly 11-minute video is a great deep dive into The Last of Us: Part I .

If you haven’t played the original game (or its remastered version) and the remake is the first time you plan to play The Last of Us , I’d suggest that you don’t watch this video. There are a bunch of spoilers here. For now, just know the remake looks absolutely gorgeous.

And terrifying. Always terrifying. For everyone else, here’s the video: You can really see the difference in fidelity between the original and The Last of Us: Part I in the comparison shots.

The new version looks so much more rich with detail. The lighting and other effects look tremendous. MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Naughty Dog is taking advantage of the PS5 hardware in many ways.

Bullets tear apart concrete columns and other objects, while cinematics will apparently flow seamlessly into gameplay thanks to the fast-loading capabilities. The AI upgrades for both allies and enemies sound interesting, with your comrades seemingly able to anticipate where an enemy’s going and pre-emptively getting out of their line of sight. That could fix an annoyance I have with stealth sections in games, where enemies seem oblivious to your companions as they move around.

Another intriguing upgrade is motion matching technology. Game director Matthew Gallant explained that the system uses logic to match the intended movement to a catalog of hundreds of animations on a per-frame basis. It seemingly makes characters’ movements more organic.

It sounds really neat. There will be more than 60 accessibility options, which is fantastic. They’ll be even more extensive than the features in The Last of Us: Part II , as Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Sid Shuman wrote on the PlayStation Blog .

One of them is an audio description mode, which seems like an excellent addition. I’d love for many more games to offer a feature like that. Elsewhere, there are features that fans have requested, such as more gameplay modifiers, additional render modes, an upgraded photo mode and a permadeath mode.

I’m really looking forward to the inevitable permadeath fail videos. There’s also a speedrun mode with an in-game timer, which is cool, since I really enjoy watching skilled players tear through The Last of Us. On top of that, you can expect fresh unlockable costumes for Joel and Ellie, a model viewer, seemingly in-depth haptic feedback and adaptive trigger support and much more.

Add all that up, and we’re looking at a heck of a package. I know a lot of folks have accused Naughty Dog of putting together a “cash grab” and criticized Sony for selling The Last of Us: Part I as a full-price game . Each to their own, but I think that’s a bad faith complaint.

It’s clear that a lot of time, effort and passion went into this remake to make it sing. If you don’t want to pay $70 for The Last of Us: Part I , don’t. Wait until it goes on sale or until it hits PS Plus in a few years.

Or avoid it completely. It’s your call. Another common argument is that the remake includes reused animations.

That’s also a bad faith complaint. Naughty Dog used the original voice and motion capture performances (why wouldn’t it?), but the inclusion of the motion matching system is evidence alone that the animations aren’t the same. Even if they were, so what? That would free up resources to polish up other aspects of the game.

When the remake was confirmed after months (years?) of rumors in June, I figured I would wait a while until the price comes down a bit. This deep dive did what it was supposed to for me, though. I’m excited.

I’m planning to get my hands on the game as soon as possible. The Last of Us: Part I will be out on PS5 on September 2. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn .

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