It’s hard to believe it’s been almost five years since The Last of Us Part II launched. Though it’s one of my all-time favourite games, I haven’t revisited it since rolling credits a few short days after the launch. And while I’ve had inklings to come back, I opted to hold out for the game’s eventual launch on PC. That wait, I’m happy to report, has been worth it. The Last of Us Part II Remastered’s PC port is excellent, packed with great PC-specific features, the brilliant No Return mode—with some neat little extras in-tow—and full-fledged Steam Deck support.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered on PC brings all of the improvements made to the original game via the PlayStation 5 remaster, along with some PC-centric additions. That includes an array of different upscaling options, including support for NVIDIA’s DLSS 4 more on that later and AMD’s FSR 4 upscaling models (with frame generation support), an uncapped framerate, and support for a wide range of resolutions.
Nixxes and Iron Galaxy haven’t skimped on graphical tweaks and options to enhance performance either. I was surprised to see a wide range of graphical toggles and options on offer in the game’s settings, ensuring the game can run on a wide range of low-end to high-end machines.
In terms of performance, my 7800X3D and RTX 4090 combo made relatively easy work of the game with all options maxed out at 4K. I was able to play the first few hours without issue at a consistent 60fps at native 4K, opting to then crank the frames per second up to 120 with DLSS set to quality. Since then, I’ve been cruising along with no major performance hiccups to note. The game runs well, and I’m confident the amount of options on offer will allow players to tweak until their heart’s content to get the performance they’re after.
Not all is perfect, however, as I’ve encountered a handful of bugs and visual glitches throughout my time with the game. Things like a character’s hair pulling away from their scalp, models not interacting with objects correctly, a crash or two, and noticeable artifacting across a variety of surfaces like water and hair. The latter is especially noticeable when using DLSS upscaling, which has caused me a few headaches to get to an acceptable level of visual fidelity.
NVIDIA and PlayStation announced The Last of Us Part II Remastered would be supporting the DLSS 4 model a little while ago, however, I haven’t been able to properly test that as of yet. I’m not one for using a DLSS swapper tool to get DLSS 4 working, especially on pre-release code, so I’ve been patiently waiting for the NVIDIA application to update and support Part II Remastered. So far, I’ve had no luck.
Consequently, the DLSS upscaling that’s currently being used is not great. Similar to the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the older DLSS model can make objects and surfaces, especially water surfaces and clothing material, look like they’re in an odd type of checkerboard pattern. It’s incredibly distracting and looks particularly awful in scenes that focus on character close-ups. While you do tend to get used to it over time, it’s a far cry from other DLSS implementations in other games and takes away from the experience. I’m sure DLSS 4 will fix this, but mileage may vary.
Taking the game on the go using my Steam Deck was a relatively painless experience, bar the initial long boot time, which took upwards of four minutes. It’s great to see Nixxes and Iron Galaxy put a Steam Deck-specific preset into the game, which toggled on immediately as I launched the game on the system. While playing through the excellent roguelite mode No Return, I was getting between 30 to 45fps, while jumping into the story mode I was netting closer to the former. Needless to say, the game’s most certainly playable on the Steam Deck and will perform even better on the more powerful PC handhelds out there.
As a package, The Last of Us Part II Remastered on PC is easily the best way to experience one of the best games ever made. It’s a stark contrast to The Last of Us Part I’s initial launch a few years ago, which was plagued with issues that took months upon months to fix.
Nixxes and Iron Galaxy have done a fantastic job bringing Naughty Dog’s masterpiece to PC, complete with a range of welcome additions and features. I was also stoked to see the inclusion of some new maps and characters for No Return, which only add more replayability and fun to the experience. If you’ve never played the game, are getting ready for the second season of the HBO series, or are ready to jump in once more, there’s no better way.
You can read our full review of The Last of Us Part II here.
