Some of the best storytelling in the medium. The premise itself is fairly standard genre fare but the character work here is by far the most impressive I've ever seen in a video game. Very light on exposition, and much of the character dynamics are revealed through subtle body language in the animation, the main themes left unsaid and bubbling under the surface. The vocal performances are incredible and bring these characters to life more than anything I’ve seen in the medium. There’s more subtlety and grace in the narrative here than even a lot of movies and television, honestly. It allows players to connect the dots themselves, instead using the lengthy cutscenes to communicate emotional tensions. The characters can rarely find the right words to express themselves, so the player must read them as they must read each other.
Still looks great 7 years later, especially running in HDR at 1800p on the Pro. The framerate dips a little here and there, but it’s still pretty consistently around 50fps at the worst of times, and there’s of course still the option to run it at 1080p 60fps if you’d prefer. The only thing that’s really aged much is the character models, but even those are better than a lot of early PS4 games.
The gameplay is really solid, much better than the Uncharted games I find. The stealth is a little barebones and confusing but otherwise it’s a really solid action-horror tinged cover shooter, playing like a toned-down version of Resident Evil 4, complete with quick turn, limited ammo offset by enemies who drop more the less you have, incremental weapon and character upgrades, and inventory management. I really like the crafting here, it forces you to plan ahead to some extent and doesn’t allow you to hoard resources too much, so you need some foresight into what you’re gonna need. It’s not perfect but I really enjoy it, and it makes for some really tense gameplay in the 4v4 multiplayer matches as well. The Last of Us is not a perfect game, but it is a landmark title for the medium that pushes linear AAA shooter campaigns to new levels of nuance in storytelling, and plays way better than you’d expect.
Still looks great 7 years later, especially running in HDR at 1800p on the Pro. The framerate dips a little here and there, but it’s still pretty consistently around 50fps at the worst of times, and there’s of course still the option to run it at 1080p 60fps if you’d prefer. The only thing that’s really aged much is the character models, but even those are better than a lot of early PS4 games.
The gameplay is really solid, much better than the Uncharted games I find. The stealth is a little barebones and confusing but otherwise it’s a really solid action-horror tinged cover shooter, playing like a toned-down version of Resident Evil 4, complete with quick turn, limited ammo offset by enemies who drop more the less you have, incremental weapon and character upgrades, and inventory management. I really like the crafting here, it forces you to plan ahead to some extent and doesn’t allow you to hoard resources too much, so you need some foresight into what you’re gonna need. It’s not perfect but I really enjoy it, and it makes for some really tense gameplay in the 4v4 multiplayer matches as well. The Last of Us is not a perfect game, but it is a landmark title for the medium that pushes linear AAA shooter campaigns to new levels of nuance in storytelling, and plays way better than you’d expect.