The Last Of Us Part 1: What’s new and is it worth it?
Our last Part I, or sometimes called The Last of Us remake, brought one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time into the spotlight. After the game’s original launch in 2013, its PS4 remake in 2014, and The Last of Us Part II In 2020, this PS5 remake seeks to bring the original and beloved game more in line with the recent sequel using a variety of modernisations. It also comes just months before the HBO adaptation debuts as one of the brand’s original series in 2023.
Suffice it to say this is the right time to get into The Last of Us, but is the $70 price tag worth it for fans? Ultimately it’s your money and you should spend it however you like, but what we can provide is a detailed breakdown of what’s new in this remake for you to judge for yourself. Here’s everything updated for 2022 and beyond in The Last of Us Part 1. For new players, this guide has been kept spoiler-free.
New game mode
The Last of Us Part I includes two new optional and challenging modes for players who want to experience the game in new ways. Permadeath mode looks like this: If you die at any point in the 12 to 15 hour story, the game resets.
However, there is some flexibility in deciding how much progress you lose on death. If you play permadeath, you can choose to start the game back to the beginning, start an action (2-3 hours) or start a chapter (30-60 minutes). Note that this mode also disables manual save, and exiting the menu or closing the game will be considered a death.
Speedrun mode is another new feature that allows you to submit time for others to try and pass. Speedplayers can compare their best times with friends and get official tips from within the PS5’s Cards feature, accessed when the PlayStation button is pressed while the game is in progress. .
Accessibility options
Like The Last of Us Part II and many other first-party games, PlayStation has emphasized the inclusion of a wide range of accessibility features in The Last of Us Remake. In many cases, these are new features that were not present in the original release of the game. The entire range of options is divided into several categories:
- Alternate control
- Magnification and visual aid
- Travel sickness
- Navigate and browse
- Screen reader and audio signal
- Combat accessibility
You can read more about The Last of Us Part 1 accessibility option here.
In each category you will find many options to change the gameplay to suit your wants or needs, such as button press vs hold, camera assist, color blind mode, customisation, etc. HUD tweaks, motion blur, the ability to completely skip puzzles, invisibility toggles, and ways to change AI behavior, such as stopping enemies from swarming you or making your allies cannot be caught by the enemy. In total, there are more than 60 accessibility options that can be enabled if you choose.
Custom difficulty
In addition to dozens of accessibility options, the game’s difficulty can now be customized, like the sequel, across multiple categories. This includes:
- Overall Challenge Difficulty – Very Light, Light, Moderate, Hard, Survivor and Landing (available after completing the game once)
- Player’s Resilience
- Enemy’s Resilience
- Aggressive Allies
- Hidden effect
- Available resources
Each of these categories has six different options on its own continuum, which means that if you want enemies to go down fast but stealth is much harder to do, for example, you can tweak it to your preferred mix. his likes.
Display mode
Part I of The Last of Us includes two display modes for 4K TVs. You can choose which one is active and you can switch between them at will. Modes include:
- Performance: Balanced resolution and frame rate. This achieves a steady 60fps and allows the resolution to move between 4K and 1440p according to the need for on-screen action.
- Fidelity: Resolution takes precedence over frame rate. This plays games in 4K at 40fps, which is smoother than the game’s original 30fps, but not quite as smooth as what’s offered in performance mode. However, you still get a guaranteed 4K resolution with no upscaling.
In general, I find the difference between 4k and 1440p to be negligible, so I always end up with a higher frame rate, but this is something you’ll want to adjust to your preferences.
New PlayStation Trophy
The Trophy list for The Last of Us Part I is slightly different from the original game, with the biggest difference being no Trophy related to difficulty. This is part of an apparently concerted effort by Sony to remove such Trophies from its game in order to allow more players to strive and achieve Platinum Titles, which reward them on completion. list of titles of the game.
Other than that, the roster is the same as you’d expect if you’ve played before, including a partition between the base game and the Ellie-centric indie prequel, Left Behind. There are no Trophies tied to the game’s fixed or speed runs, so you can skip them and still earn Platinum if you want. You’ll still want to collect all of the game’s collectibles, hear all of Ellie’s jokes, and perform some gameplay-specific feats.
Better collectible tracking
The Last of Us has a wide variety of collections, including Firefly pendants, comic books, etc. In this remake, you can better keep track of what you’ve found – and what you’re still missing – in each chapter. This will make it easier to go back to a chapter and locate what you’re looking for on the path to 100% game completion.
Improved photo mode
PlayStation consistently includes some of the best photo modes in the game, and that remains true in The Last of Us Part I. The option set includes a ton of filters, logos, frames, and camera controls, as you’d expect. wait. But it also includes an elaborate lighting rig that allows you to frame the scene in ways that some games – maybe not – have allowed before.
Other Extra Features
Beating the game for the first time unlocks some alternate visual filters, character skins, etc. The system is similar to the original game, but it has been extended for the remake to include more “maps” play” is more unlockable, for wanting a better word. The full list includes:
- Mirror World
- Mirror of death
- Slow motion
- Bullet speed mode
- Many arguments
- Infinite Crafting
- Infinite melee endurance
- Infinite listening mode range
- A flanking
- 8 bit audio
- 4 bit audio
- Helium sound
- Xenon sound
Image overhaul
Perhaps more than any other reason, this remake exists because it brings the original game in line with the much more recent sequel, creating a cohesive, 40-hour storyline for those want to experience the full story. This is no coincidence of timing, as the complete story already looks and plays great on PS5 as well as the TV series The Last of Us due out on HBO in 2023.
Exhibition room
The brand touted the film adaptation as one of their most exciting new series, even using it as “one more thing” in an August trailer for what’s coming to HBO. . Along with so many other multimedia projects looking to adapt PlayStation franchises into movies or shows, arguably nothing has as prestige as Naughty Dog and The Last of Us have long brought to the platform. , so this remake goes as far as you might expect since it’s built on the framework of a nine-year-old video game.
The character models have been made to be more consistent with their subsequent versions, the environments have been given much more detail on both large and small scales, and naturally, the fidelity of everything in the game world is sharper than ever.
While the 2014 remake was a matter of upscaling thanks to more powerful hardware, The Last of Us Part 1 is an honest remake. It doesn’t change the story one bit, not a single line of dialogue. But what it does do is bring one of PlayStation’s most famous and prestigious projects into the modern day, and in so doing, it means attracting new players as well as old players.
Is a nicer, more accessible, more distinctive feature version of the best game of 2013 worth your time and money? Ultimately it is up to you to decide, but to know more about the game you can read The Last of Us Part I review.
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