I have played The Last of Us many times. I know the story intimately. I know the characters. I know the world. I know the wonderful musical score.
What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t know, is just how good the PC version would look.
Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. I bought the PS5 version of The Last of Us Part 1 just so I could have a physical disc copy of this game I love. And in its playing, despite its beauty, I could see inherent cuts which had to be made to fit inside the budget of the mid-range PC GPU found inside the PS5, that too one without the full feature set of RDNA 2. Nips and tucks had to be made, understandably so, for a game of this technical ambition to run on a mainstream living room box.
Simply put, the PS5 version is not Naughty Dog’s true technical vision brought to life.
No, the true technical vision is on PC, only on PC. The PC is, quite literally, a limitless platform, one which gifts ambitious and daring developers with infinite power. So few developers recognize that power before them, and fewer still bother tapping into it.
Fortunately, The Last of Us Part 1 on PC is a cut above its console counterpart. Despite being a port and not a bespoke built-for-purpose version, The Last of Us Part 1 on PC provides us with superior lighting, superior shadows, greater draw distance, greater incidental detail, higher quality reflections, outrageously high-quality shaders, and more.
The Last of Us Part 1 on PC is a supreme example showcasing how artist-driven baked lighting can provide an extremely immersive and photorealistic experience. So few games do baked lighting as well as The Last of Us Part 1. Only its sequel and Assassin’s Creed Unity (yes) on PC are its rivals.
We also gain access to PC-specific advantages not found on console--impossible on console--such as ML-accelerated reconstruction in the form of DLSS. I have sung the praises of DLSS before, and they remain just as relevant, if not stronger, than ever.
The Last of Us Part 1 leverages DLSS 2 version 3.1.2. The reconstruction here is sublime. When playing at my 4K output resolution with DLSS set to Quality (which means it’s reconstructing from an internal 1440p), the resulting image quality is superior to that of native 4K. In fact, it is superior to the image quality found on PS5 in both its Quality (native 4K) and Performance (raw 1440p) modes. Every single PC game must include DLSS.
This, more than anything, is an indictment of image quality over raw pixel count. The former is far more important today than the latter. And furthermore, it’s greater proof TAA--the antialiasing solution found on PS5 and set by default on PC--simply results in inferior image quality than more advanced ML-accelerated mitigation solutions like DLSS only found on PC.
Playing The Last of Us Part 1 with fully maxed out settings, 4K output resolution, and DLSS set to Quality results in a buttery smooth 120fps on my RTX 4090-equipped PC. It’s an incredible experience, one which completely immerses me due to the superior visuals on offer.
When taken as a whole, the PC version of The Last of Us Part 1 simply feels more tactile, more immediate, more immersive, more alive than its console counterpart. Make no mistake. The Last of Us Part 1 on PC is the supreme version of this marvelous game. It is, inarguably, Naughty Dog’s uncompromised vision unleashed and brought to bear, only made possible by the vastly more powerful hardware on offer.
Playing The Last of Us Part 1 on PC makes me excited for Naughty Dog’s future PC endeavors. What they have achieved on PC with this now-decade old title is nothing short of remarkable. The technology here is strong. If this is their starting point, boy, I am shaking with anticipation for their next PC outing.
The Last of Us Part 1 on PC is nothing short of a graphical masterclass, extolling the unrelenting, unapologetic power only afforded by this platform. And I am all there for it.