Most The Last of Us Part 2 fans would tell you it’s the most technically proficient game ever to exist. From the realistic rope physics to the way fabric ripples on Ellie’s shirt when she examines her wounds, there are things in The Last of Us Part 2 most other studios can’t do – and those that could, like Rockstar, haven’t made a game since TLOU2 to prove otherwise. If you wanted to show someone the pinnacle of modern gaming, you would show them The Last of Us Part 2. So why is it getting remastered?
I know there’s some cool elements to the remaster. Playing through unfinished levels that were cut from the final project is a legitimately groundbreaking idea. Dev commentary is also interesting, though I’m unsure how that works in execution. Movie commentary is far easier because you’ll always be at the same point the actors were, but even in a linear game like The Last of Us Part 2, it feels a lot more complicated. It’s also ‘only’ $10 if you own the original. What a swell deal!
But it’s not just $10 for this remaster, because it makes $80 once you add in the remaster of The Last of Us Part One. There was much excitement and the ‘groundbreaking’ potential of that too, with the idea of ‘TLOU2 combat in TLOU’ excitedly touted, only for fans to bow their heads and mutter that slightly improved graphics and barely noticeable changes to enemy AI were exactly what they dreamed of.
The problem is less what’s being made, or even what they’re charging for it. It’s what it means for the media landscape, and for Naughty Dog itself. You might remember that, way back when, The Last of Us Part 2 was supposed to ship with Factions 2. An enjoyable if fairly routine multiplayer mode, it was a popular part of the original. But, during development, it was cut for time. We were promised it would follow shortly after as an expansion, and we all shrugged and accepted it. Naughty Dog had a lot of credit in the bank.
Three years later there’s no sign of Factions 2, which has now expanded into a standalone game. Naughty Dog won’t even mention it. Sony acquired Bungie, and its first task was to fix Factions 2. The advice was to throw the whole thing out and start again. If Sony is the prestige console, Naughty Dog is the prestige’s prestige. The best of the best. In the three years since its magnum opus, it has (publicly, at least) floundered at its first foray into multiplayer, and vainly repainted its earlier masterpieces to show off the latest techniques in brushstrokes.
Naughty Dog is a huge studio (2,000 people made TLOU2), so the biggest guns are likely on something else; either Factions or an entirely new thing – Naughty Dog is rumoured to be working on a new fantasy IP, along with everyone else. Perhaps this is the size of studio that can afford to have some people painting the Forth Rail Bridge while others build bridges anew. Maybe, despite all the snarky tweets and opinion columns, it’s fine for Naughty Dog to do this. But is it fine for us?
Video games are playing things way too safe right now. The three front runners for Game of the Year (Baldur’s Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, and Alan Wake 2) all do things differently, and that alone makes them some of the best games this year. Video games are too reliant on focus groups and algorithms and bankable dollars – that’s the whole reason Sony expanded Factions 2 into a full-fledged live-service game that could be stuffed with microtransactions and battle passes. Remasters only make things worse.
Nothing is black and white – Resident Evil 4 Remake adds significantly to the game and offers a better interpretation of the original, rather than a like for like recreation. Dead Space, however, is a simple example of companies selling us what we already own to see if we’ll buy it again, and therefore if they should make another. The Last of Us Parts 1 & 2 remastered are part vanity and part cash grab.
The sad thing is it’s hard to imagine The Last of Us itself growing from an environment like this. Sony’s blockbuster studio, known for fun and explosive colourful set pieces, now making a gritty not-zombie horror that’s really an examination of humanity? These days, it feels as if Sony might have told Naughty Dog to just remaster Uncharted 2 instead of worrying about this ‘Joel’ fella.
Video games are making a lot of money (still more than film and TV), but it may have reached critical mass. Once you make a certain amount of money, people in suits show up with ideas on how to maximise that money, and freedom and creativity fades. As profit rises, that freedom shrinks. This is bigger than Naughty Dog. The industry as a whole is too concerned with what worked in the past, and relying on old glories. If it keeps doing that at the cost of new ideas, pretty soon there won’t be old glories left – just new photocopies of them.