'The Last Of Us' Fans On The Fence Over Remake Graphics

Who tuned into Summer Game Fest yesterday? Geoff Keighley’s Keigh-3 kicked off what is set to be a huge week of gaming reveals and boy, it was exciting.

The biggest reveal of the day was undeniably the much-rumoured new-gen remake of The Last of Us … even if Sony did accidentally leak the trailer a few hours early. Officially titled The Last of Us Part 1, the game has been completely remade from the ground up for both PlayStation 5 and PC.

Check out the brand new trailer for The Last of Us Part 1 to relive Ellie and Joel’s journey all over again.

Creative director of Naughty Dog and creator of The Last of Us Neil Druckmann took to the Summer Game Fest stage to briefly talk about the remake teasing, “The great thing about these faces is that they’re closer to the original performances. All the animators went and studied those videos,” so we should be seeing even more of Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker’s iconic performances.

That being said, not everyone was convinced by the changes. Taking to the r/gaming subreddit, fans responded to a side-by-side comparison of Ellie in The Last of Us and the new-gen Ellie from The Last of Us Part 1. Loquacious706 wrote, “I think it might be too soon to remake a game if I, as someone who hasn't played it, can't tell which one is supposed to be the new one,” and Sol33t303 said, “Personally, I hate the remake look. Everything looks so blurry and Ellie looks like a baby.”

EpicArgumentMaster shared in the criticism saying, “I’m personally not a fan of the textures. They look less detailed. The lighting looks like it’s been set up for a photoshoot, and everything just looks flatter.” Ellie’s new look seemed to be a popular discussion point. Unknown_Outlander wrote, “Interesting choice to make her look like a literal different character,” and jsmith17540 said, “Her face looks wrong. Like not the same girl at all.”

Personally, I think the ‘new’ Ellie simply looks as she did in The Last of Us Part II’s flashback sequences so I’m surprised the changes have caused such debate, given how this version of the character essentially debuted two years ago. I’m all for it but if you’re not, the 2013 original isn’t going anywhere so there’s a version for everyone.