On The Last of Us reviews have been made galore. The game was one of the most acclaimed in recent years; as a story, as a gameplay and under many other points of view. It was one exclusive to PlayStation until the end of March 2023at which time Naught Dog made it also available for PC through Steam. How was landing on the new platform? Some say a bit abrupt. Today we offer you a review not so much of The Last of Us game as of how it got (its port) to PC.
What does it mean to port a game
It’s a simple term, but we think it’s important to clarify. Porting a game (or software in general) means taking it and make it work as close to the original as possible on a new platform or on a new operating system.
A port is one different thing than a remaster. In a remastered version yes revamp a game by upgrading assets (graphics, 3D models, audio, special effects) so that they make better use of new technologies. A port, however, port the game to a system where it was previously unavailable possibly correcting errors. Obviously, nothing prevents the assets from being improved during a porting there where permitted or necessary.
Also read the review on the series The Last of Us
If we think of the publishing world, a port is like reprinting a book in a different format and translating the text into a new language.
Il porting di The Last of Us su PC
Porting a game like The Last of US, which we’re seeing in this review, from PlayStation to PC is, as some would say, looking for trouble. In fact, there is nothing in common between the two platforms: different operating system, different processor, different memory management, different is even the system with which the game is implemented (SDK).
It is not an impossible task, but we also admit that it is very difficult. In fact, in this case, the programmers they started with assets and design documents It is probably, they had to redo the programming basically from scratch.
How is the port of The Last of Us faring?
This is a really simple question that seems to need a rather complex answer.
If we look out the window of the Internet, it seems that the result is not the best. Many users immediately started complaining of graphics-related issues, dropped frames, and constant crashes. So much so that on sites that collect opinions, such as metacritic.com, the ratings are below average.
The phenomenon has taken on such a dimension that even Naughty Dog had to comment on the matter through twitter.
The Last of Us Part I PC players: we’ve heard your concerns, and our team is actively investigating multiple issues you’ve reported.
We will continue to update you, but our team is prioritizing updates and will address issues in upcoming patches.
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) March 28, 2023
Our review of The Last of Us Part I on PC
If we are to be honest, and in countertrend to the masseswe, all those problems we have not seen.
It’s true, we don’t deny it, the game doesnt want much from a PC even with good hardware and the frames per second aren’t stellar. Indeed, some optimization problem was admitted. However, Overall, our gaming experience was positive. The game sometimes responds with a handful of milliseconds of delay and on some (altogether rare) occasion we have seen a framerate slightly below the minimum wage. However, we have not observed no graphical disturbances e the game never crashed. So, it is true that we expected something more, but we don’t even hear the complaints answered of most users.
From a technical point of view there are problems, needless to deny it. Some are immediately visible, such as the response delay, which can annoy the most demanding players. Others, however, are a little more structural. Like the fact that you have to wait a very long time for the game to prepare all shaders at the start. Luckily it needs to be done only on first start; but it is the first time that we happen to have to wait so long.
For those less tech savvy, a shader is a program that instead of using the CPU it targets the graphics card. A shader, said in a very synthetic way, describes how our graphics card should represent objects on the monitor. We simply doubt that those who complained of display problems may not have waited long enough to start playing.
The other thing we were a bit puzzled about is the fact that the game, when pointing to the commands, assumes you are using a PlayStation controller. Which, let’s face it, is true on Steam only in a limited number of cases. We understand that the port wants to be faithful to the original, but considering controllers other than Sony’s seems quite due to us. Especially if, at some point, the game asks you to press the central touchpad to create new items.
For the rest, apart from the two aspects just described, we replayed a couple of levels, having fun and enjoying the story. There is some problem, but in our case it was not such as to prevent us from enjoying the game in tranquility.
What went wrong?
Also read the review on the series The Last of Us
It is evident that something, at least at the exit, went wrong. About what exactly, given the complexity of the project, we could only speculate. However, we do not believe it is possible that such a large group of users have agreed to defame the game. So, surely there were problems.
Even as to why our test was not in line with the general opinion, we can only speculate. It could be that in the 48 hours following the release, the development team rolled up their sleeves and has noticed some errors a bit ‘gross, so we have already benefited from the first updates. Or, simply, we lucked out with our hardware combination. Because, it must be pointed out, developing for a console means having the certainty of what the hardware will be, while on a PC the game has to deal with a huge variety of combinations.
In the end, the only thing we here at the editorial team have agreed on is that or the quality control (QA) team was a bit distracted or the game is rushed out for marketing reasons. By marketing reasons we can mean a lot of things, including the fact of take advantage of the notoriety of the television series inspired by the game. AND haste is always a bad advisereven when he shows up with a check in hand.
The review of The Last of Us Part I PC port at a glance
The Last of Us Part I on PC, which we saw in this review, is a port that, in our opinion, still has some sharp edges but what will be implemented in a short time. Unfortunately it is consolidating one widespread opinion of dissatisfaction, which however we do not feel like supporting; Why in our tests we did not have much evidence of it. The final result, it must be admitted, it’s not perfect, but we found it equally playable.
If you have any doubts, we understand and suggest you to wait a few days to see if there will be any major updates by Naught Dog. Be that as it may, the game remains a fantastic experience, and if you haven’t played it on PlayStation, we highly recommend you give it a shot. The story deserves a lot, even in the face of some bugs to bear. Above all, remember to update your graphics card drivers and take yourself pause while the game compiles the shaders; everything should be fine.