The Last of Us Part II Remastered

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Sometimes video games can be a little controversial. Well, they’re usually controversial only among a very specific, very vocal contingent of people who should probably touch grass, and it’s probably fairly safe to ignore that contingent. Does that mean they were really all that controversial in the first place? We’ll leave that question to the philosophers.

Instead, we’ll look at a game that may or may not fit the above bill: The Last of Us: Part II Remastered, a sorta-kinda remaster of a game that’s probably not old enough and certainly not technically decrepit enough to need one.

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Years after the blood-spattered conclusion of the first The Last of Us, antihero and video game dad Joel and his ward Ellie live in a burgeoning community of survivors determined to bring civilization back. If you weren’t familiar, this is a land devastated by a fungal infection that’s turned the majority of humanity into infected maniacs bent on chowing down on anyone who’s not shroom’d. That was about twenty years ago, though, and now we’re mostly talking about the remnants of humanity and what will become of them.

To understate things a bit, Joel plays less of a leading role in this game, on account of spending his time joining a gentleman’s club or something like that. We mostly follow an older, saltier Ellie and new lead Abby as they make their way through a devastated post-apocalyptic world, dealing with mushroom zombies, gun-toting humans and the ravaged landscape along the way, though a secondary protagonist also gets a lot of screen time and gameplay.

From a plot perspective, TLOU2 does pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the modern generation of cinematic video games: summer blockbuster-style emotional manipulation with a dash of interactivity here and there. Plot beats arrive with sweeping, orchestral reminders of how you’re supposed to feel about them, then are followed with a bit of stealth-focused combat which in turn makes way for the next heartstring-crushing moment. It’s still a video game, of course, and video games don’t do subtlety.

The player isn’t trusted to draw their own conclusions about events, so those events are smashed home with all the subtlety of a rocket-powered sledgehammer – and you’re still not allowed to, say, go through a doorway before your chatty NPC companion. The plot here also comes off as nearly hilarious in its hamfisted nature given the controversial events that take place, its absolute lack of elegant storytelling and the year in which it was released, but we should look at games from a lens free of chronological considerations, right?

The whole affair is about on par with your average YA novel from a storytelling perspective (brutal digitized violence and sex scenes aside, but even those feel like a strained effort at Making The Viewer Uncomfortable as per the crumpled, dog-eared playbook of the past generation or so of media) and that’s not exactly a criticism, it’s more a statement of the medium as it stands right now. There’s a big sign over the stage that lights up when you’re supposed to gasp, cry, applaud and so on. It’s not surprising how easily this franchise transitioned to award-winning television, but just don’t come in expecting a deep, nuanced experience and you probably won’t be disappointed.

How about gameplay, then? It’s pretty similar to the first game, actually. You spend a lot of time skulking around from shadow to shadow, avoiding the enemy of the day – either dumb-but-fast zombies or surprisingly clever human opponents. Getting the drop on baddies is as satisfying as ever, with a few minor upgrades here and there like the ability to stealth-kill Clicker zombies without using consumable items. Zombie sections tend to be tense, slow-paced sneaking sessions where one wrong move leads to a trip back to the most recent checkpoint. They’re there to cleanse the palate between the sickeningly sweet and stomach-churningly spicy story beats.

Battles against humans, meanwhile, make for a great time, since they’ll act as a group and work to outsmart you. They send scouts, respond to their comrades being taken out and communicate with each other as you work your way through each setpiece. You can successfully approach battles against humans with both a stealthy or a guns-blazing approach, even swap between the two as necessary. The moments when you’re actually in control of TLOU2 feel great.

So what’s new in this remaster? Not a whole lot. The Last of Us Part II Remastered is certainly a nicer-looking game in a marginal sort of way. The leap from PS4 to PS5 just isn’t the graphical step up one would expect to merit a “Remaster” in the title, though, and the less discerning among us might not notice all that much. Maybe “Director’s Cut” would have been better? The standard PS5 updates apply here as well, of course, including my beloved haptic feedback. I come from a place completely free of bias when I say that haptic feedback alone is worth your $10.

Along with some minor graphical improvements, there’s also a new game mode called No Return that takes The Last of Us’ gameplay and slaps it onto a roguelike framework. You can play as various characters with various skills, collect and activate various effects and mostly play around in the sort of gameplay sandbox that wouldn’t fit too well into the main game. This is a cute addition along the lines of God of War Ragnarok‘s Valhalla add-on, except that one was free instead of $10 and we didn’t call it God of War Ragnarok Remastered. Either way, you’ll value this more or less depending on the degree to which you’re playing this for the gameplay rather than the story.

You ever watch The Walking Dead, particularly some episodes from the later seasons? You’ve got an idea of what you’re getting here, then, but at least you’re getting it in “remastered” form. The Last of Us: Part II follows a road that’s well-trodden by this point. Grimdark “the humans are the real monsters!!!” storytelling is just about the only zombie narrative anyone is able to tell these days, so this game probably won’t blow any minds for fans of the genre.

Additionally, this entry in the series continues to pale in comparison to the first game, a conclusion I’ve reached after a second exposure to this game’s cringier moments cemented it in my brain, and the use of the term “Remaster” in the title might be the worst offense committed against the English language since we started saying “soonest” in emails. But it’s a $10 upgrade, one that comes with a new game mode that’ll likely keep you interested for a few hours. If you didn’t completely hate the original The Last of Us: Part II, chances are you won’t hate the remaster either, but it’s not going to change your mind one way or the other.