In 2013, after the successful Uncharted series, Naughty Dog released something completely new – the post-apocalyptic The Last of Us. And soon the game became an absolute hit. It has an incredible score of 95 out of 100 on Metacritic and is still very popular with gamers. Already a year later, we received a remaster for PS4, and it seemed that this was the final end of this game. But this is not so, after only 9 years since the release of the first TLOU, a full-fledged remake is heading to the market. You can already read our review here, but in this article we will mainly look at the technical side, which, as always, was analyzed in detail by Digital Foundry, namely John Linneman.
The game offers two main modes: quality and performance. In the former, you can expect native 4K and 30 FPS, while the performance mode promises dynamic 4K and 60 FPS, but according to Digital Foundry, that’s just 1440p. Apart from this, the title offers several other options. If you have a 120Hz display, you will be able to play in high quality mode at 40 FPS. Alternatively, if your device also supports VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), you can completely unlock the frame rate in both modes.
Linneman initially compares the game to the original, but as you can see, the graphical change is really obvious at first glance. The original game only renders at 720p, has worse shadows, and lower levels of anisotropic filtering.
And now to the more interesting part, the comparison between the remaster and the remake. First, there were cutscenes, where there is one significant difference. While in the remaster they are pre-rendered and therefore look better than the gameplay itself, in the remake cutscenes are rendered in real time. Although this is demanding on the hardware, it also guarantees a smooth transition between the game and the “movies”. In the remaster, the transition is a short black screen, you will not find anything like this in the remake.
The new character models are also significantly better, below you can see a comparison of Bill, Tess, Ellie and Joel.
Of course, the most recognizable faces, Linneman especially praises the behavior of the eyes, which can sound quite banal, but in emotional cutscenes can take the experience to a completely different level. In addition, new camera angles and animations were used to make everything look more natural.
Indeed, in the remaster there are several cutscenes that are rendered in the so-called real time, and here the difference compared to the remake is even greater, especially in lighting, whether it be the light from a flashlight, the appearance of a character or an explosion of a vehicle. In short, lighting does a lot.
Now let’s move on to the game part. Already at the beginning, improvements in terms of shadows are noticeable. Their sharpness changes depending on the light source, distance and position of the subject, which again results in everything looking more believable. For example, in the remaster there are no shadows in the mirror at all, but they remained in the remake. In the remake, you would also find a shadow on the flash from the frame.
In the introductory section we also find signs of significantly better lighting, for example even when driving a car, when the glass is not 100% transparent as in the original, but we can see the dirt on it. Explosions, as we have seen, also look much better.
Later in the game, we find other great examples of how important lighting is.
We can also look at the rain, which looks much better on its own. But most of all, the appearance of wet objects has changed.
Water in general looks much better in the remake, especially in terms of reflections. The game does not use ray tracing and you can see it, but still boasts reflections that look quite realistic. But there are other things related to water, such as when you shine a flashlight on water, the light changes color.
The object detail is of course also excellent and a big improvement over the PS4 remaster. Textures are much sharper, which is especially noticeable when viewed at close range. At the same time, some new items have been added to the game, for example, in buildings you will find more mirrors that can be cleverly used during firefights to see the hidden enemy. The remake also boasts a simulation of spores in the air, which we already know from the second part.
And while we’re at it, let’s finally look at the comparison. The games show they use similar technology, but part 1 still has the edge, especially with the character models. After all, judge for yourself.
At the end, Linneman addresses the gameplay and, above all, changes in artificial intelligence, but for this I recommend watching the video itself.
What do you think about the remake, do you think that there are enough improvements?
Source :Indian TV
