DF Weekly: Do we actually need The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn remasters?

DF Direct Weekly typically focuses on the week’s gaming and technology news, but the latest episode actually kicks off with a story we missed from seven days prior: the announcement of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. Rumours have circled this project for months now and we’ve often wondered why Sony and Naughty Dog would embark on a remaster for a game that doesn’t need remastering – and already has 60 frames per second support for PlayStation 5. Now, everything has come into focus but is it a worthwhile endeavour?

Well, with the details we now have in terms of features and pricing, I don’t think there are any significant concerns remaining – just that perhaps that the term ‘remastered’ in the title is a little misplaced. Essentially, what we’re dealing with here is broadly equivalent to a release along the lines of Death Stranding: Director’s Cut. It’s the original game with a dash of extra content and additional visual modes that tap into the power of PlayStation 5. Yes, Sony is likely to release this with a premium price, but there’s a £10/$10 upgrade fee for owners of the original PS4 release – and of course, there’s nothing stopping anyone from procuring a used disc and upgrading from there. A free upgrade for PS5 would have been welcome, of course, but similar to Ghosts of Tsushima, there’s already a 60fps patch available that doesn’t cost anything at all.

Based on Sony’s PR, other enhancements are in line with the changes made for The Last of Us Part 1 and the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection. Primarily, The Last of Us Part 2 becomes a native PlayStation 5 app, primarily gaining access to graphics features from the RDNA2 GPU liberated from back-compat mode, along with more memory. This opens the door to a native 4K fidelity mode, higher resolution textures along with increased level of detail and animation sample rates. The kind of HDMI 2.1 features we’ve seen previously also appear, meaning that the door’s open to a 40fps fidelity mode along with unlocked VRR frame-rates. In combination with the new survival mode and ‘lost levels’ content, that’s a pretty compelling package for the upgrade fee being asked, while the game is refreshed and ready to appear on the shelves for new PlayStation 5 owners to buy.

• 0:00:00 Introduction and DF merch store!
• 0:03:13 News 01: The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered announced
• 0:17:27 News 02: Cyberpunk 2077 gets Ultimate Edition
• 0:35:16 News 03: Xbox sales down in Europe
• 0:53:19 News 04: Half-Life hits 25th anniversary, documentary released
• 1:07:59 News 05: StarEngine graphics update video released
• 1:19:30 News 06: Rich takes a PS5 ‘Slim’ out of its box!
• 1:33:56 DF Supporter Q1: Have you checked out the Portal port for N64?
• 1:41:59 DF Supporter Q2: I think TLOU Part 2 looks similar to path traced games, with better image clarity – what do you think?
• 1:47:44 DF Supporter Q3: Do you worry that you emphasize top-end graphics too much in your game coverage?
• 1:50:37 DF Supporter Q4: Is there a niche for a powerful, exclusively handheld system in today’s market?
• 1:57:26 DF Supporter Q5: What if the new Switch was actually two consoles – a portable console and a home console?
• 2:02:07 DF Supporter Q6: Happy Thanksgiving! Do the American expats at DF celebrate Thanksgiving in their new European homes?

What was curious was the lack of any kind of PC announcement for the project. We know that the game was leaked early, ahead of time, ruining Naughty Dog’s marketing plans – so is this an attempt to keep hold of at least one further marketing opportunity? Or was the negative reaction to The Last of Us Part 1 so potent that Sony and Naughty Dog would rather side-step that particular for now? The truth is that after months of further development, the studio did manage to get PC into shape and although still somewhat heavy on both CPU and GPU, the PC version of the sequel should launch in a good state.

Beyond that, concerns that Naughty Dog would be remastering a game that didn’t need remastering end up being mostly irrelevant – what we’re looking at is a next-gen update, if you will, along with some DLC-style bonus content. The Last of Us Part 1, this is not. However, the notion of a new rendition of The Last of Us Part 2 was just one part of a wider rumour (still unconfirmed) that also included a revamp of Horizon Zero Dawn, a game that debuted in 2017 on PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro before eventually receiving a 60fps patch for PS5 in September 2021. Is a remaster actually necessary?

In this week’s DF Direct Weekly, my colleagues don’t sound particularly keen on the idea and it would require a highly compelling pitch to sell us on a game that isn’t actually that old. Whether it’s Guerrilla itself or a closely-associated third party studio involved, there’s the sense that developers’ time may be better spent on an original new game. And if we’re looking at a ‘Director’s Cut’ project like The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, the impact may be quite limited – a limited visual revamp would not compare favourably with Horizon Forbidden West in the way that TLOU Part 2 Remastered stacks up against The Last of Us Part 1.

The alternative would be a full remake based on the latest Decima technology – not an insignificant undertaking, but likely cheaper to produce than a completely new game and a sure-fire win for Sony in terms of sales success, assuming the software is up to par… and it would be unwise for anyone to underestimate Guerrilla’s commitment to quality. A generational revamp to visuals, image quality, character rendering, animation quality could still be a highly impressive product, even before we consider gameplay revamps and the kind of commitment to accessibility features Sony now fully embraces. And if we consider the ninth generation of consoles to persist until 2028, a Horizon Zero Dawn remake would slot in quite nicely between Forbidden West essentially kicking off Guerrilla’s contribution to this console generation, and the end of a potential trilogy closer to the end of it.

Of course, as John points out in this week’s Direct, there’s a significantly stronger case for remastering the Killzone titles from PlayStation 3 and Shadowfall on PS4 – games that would genuinely stand to benefit from the usual enhancements remastering delivers and where today’s gameplay sensibilities could genuinely improve gameplay. However, for whatever reason, Sony and Guerrilla do seem to have left that particular franchise behind and there are few, if any, indicators that this situation is likely to change. And on a more general note, Sony’s more avant garde experimentation with PS5 releases also seems to be over – we’ve yet to see any kind of successor to Astro’s Playroom, for example: smaller, but still highly worthwhile and beguiling titles. Bring back Knack!

That’s just the first news topic in the latest DF Direct Weekly, which you can watch embedded further up this page. We also spend some time discussing the curious situation of Cyberpunk 2077’s Ultimate Edition – which seems to be more ultimate on one platform than another, while Alex discusses improvements to the game’s DLSS 3.5 ray reconstruction technology – via both organic updates and by swapping in the Alan Wake 2 .dll. Alex is also pretty taken with the latest StarEngine game engine trailer, while I finally unbox the PlayStation 5 Slim! Yes, there is a console inside the box that I bought and I removed that console from within that box in front of a camera in the most compelling DF Direct segment yet! I hope you enjoy the show, and remember – joining the DF Supporter Program gives you early access plus opportunities to help shape the show. See you next week!