The Last Of Us Part 1 remake review – third time is not the charm

metro.co.uk:

After being released on PS3 and remastered for PS4 the original The Last Of Us has been remade for PS5, but what has actually changed?

There’s only one question anyone wants answered with The Last Of Us Part 1 and that’s… why? The original is rightly regarded as a modern classic and while being nine years old makes it sound relatively ancient, it was released right at the end of the PlayStation 3 era and in terms of visuals was well ahead of its time. A year later it was remastered for the PlayStation 4, a version which many complained was overly expensive and offered no substantial improvements. And now history is repeating itself on the PlayStation 5.

Back in 2014, remasters were all the rage but now remakes are more fashionable, primarily because the difference a remaster makes from one generation to the next has become largely trivial. A remake is essentially a brand new game and that combined with the passage of time has convinced Sony to charge full price for this new version, almost doubling the cost of the game from its original release.

The Last Of Us Part 1 is not only the most expensive version of the game ever but also the most content light, since it completely removes the multiplayer element – no doubt because there’s a standalone multiplayer game coming next year. At the same time, essentially nothing has changed about the core gameplay, so since we’ve reviewed the game twice already, we’ll be focusing primarily on the remake itself.

For anyone that has not played The Last Of Us before our review of the remaster still holds true (minus the multiplayer), but in short the game is mechanically very similar to the Uncharted series, with a little less platforming and a lot more stealth. Which is to say it’s a third