The Last of Us Part 1 Review: Reliving a Beautiful Tragedy?

When people ask about The Last of Us, I describe it as “one of the best games I’ve ever played, and one that I never want to play again.” It’s a cinematic, slickly-designed, and action-packed adventure, but it’s also incredibly tough to consume purely due to the brutality, nihilism, and misery that the game’s plot conjures up. Much like a Taylor Sheridan film (Sicario, Wind River), it excellently captures the harsh realities of human suffering, and is something you experience once and move on. No one really wants to open those wounds up again, even through the vicarious medium of video games and film.

Well, here we are, playing it again courtesy of the remake, re-titled The Last of Us Part 1, which now fits a lot more seamlessly (both from a naming convention and art design approach) to its 2020 sequel, The Last of Us Part II. Debating whether The Last of Us is a good game or not seems superfluous at this point. The multi-Game of the Year award-winning title is everything it’s cracked up to be and more, but whether or not this remake was necessary has been the biggest question since its announcement.

And that’s because the game itself is still so good, and still feels very playable and relevant, not to mention that it got an updated Remastered edition just a few years ago. Either way, developer Naughty Dog hasn’t really steered wrong with their decisions so far, so they feel this reworked version of the game needs to exist, but for who exactly?

What is The Last of Us Part 1 exactly, though? While it is a ‘remake’ in the traditional sense, it isn’t exactly a ‘built from the ground up’ reenvisioning of the original — something we’ve come to expect in the industry as of late. Yes, you get some new additions here and there, including some accessibility options, game modifiers, and the workbench animations from The Last of Part II. But, it’s fair to say that Part 1 is more along the aligns of the remastered game running through a new engine with some tweaks here and there, rather than the full blown Mafia remake, or the Resident Evil 2 or RE3 reimaginings for that matter.

That isn’t to say that a lot of work hasn’t gone into it though — the already-brilliant foundation has been enhanced with more destructible environments, better lighting, sharper textures, more accurate facial animations, and a host of other details and assets plopped into the world. However, side-by-side with the original, the game uses the same motion capture, systems, and plays out canonically exactly the same as you remember it that near-decade ago. And whether it be rose-tinted glasses or the fact that the original looked so damn good, it makes it hard to appreciate the nuances that Part 1 brings to the party. Yes, some of the things in the environment are immaculately detailed, but you’ll find yourself thinking “wasn’t it like that before?”

And this is the problem with The Last of Us Part 1. While it’s arguably the best game in the short but incredible two-game series, it takes an already stellar game and makes it 10% better, rather than rejuvenating the experience.

The allure of the game will then depend on which camp you find yourself in. Firstly, if you’ve never played the original or remaster, this is the definitive version, and now you have no need to haul out a dusty PS3 or hunt down the remaster — it’s a must-buy. However, if you loved the original, and maybe dabbled in the remaster, there’s admittedly not too much to get you excited for here. It’s a great feat from Naughty Dog to give their magnum opus, of sorts, an update; but it does feel more like a passion project from the studio to align their star-child with its sequel, whether for historical purposes or something else, that could’ve been something else — but that’s a discussion for another day.

The Last of Us Part 1 is available on PS5.