From art direction to character modeling, The Last of Us has been rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of next-gen graphic assets, allowing this remake to achieve the visual fidelity that Naughty Dog was aiming for when creating this new experience.
According to Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann, the PS5 remake of The Last of Us will feature a host of new features and improvements that will bring the game closer to its original vision. Creative Director Sean Escaig and Game Director Matthew Gallant also take a look at these many game-changing title changes in a dev diary-like video.
A new detailed video of The Last of Us Part I shows how Naughty Dog has redesigned the visuals and gameplay.
Watch here: https://t.co/yDOc6j3HT8 pic.twitter.com/eIwGFMx2lY
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- Neil Druckmann: “More than two years ago, when we were wrapping up The Last of Us 2 and working on flashbacks to scenes from the first game, we were happy to say to ourselves, ‘Oh, if only we could do The Last of Us the same way. as good as, if not better than, what we did with The Last of Us 2.”We really pushed the boundaries of what we could do in terms of gameplay and graphics, and we thought that if we did that, we could really get closer to our original vision of what the first game would have been. technology (…) Now that we have our engine on PS5, haptics, 3D audio, fast loading, it really creates a much more immersive experience and as a result,
- Sean Escaig: “PS5 tech is like a set of tools and gadgets that we can rely on to deliver 4K, HDR, enhanced haptics or even 60fps. This allowed us to rethink The Last of Us and gave us the ability to recreate our characters with the highest fidelity. Not only are the characters more detailed, I mean the iris and the depth of the pupils. You dive into the eyes of the heroes. Other than that, the facial animation is much more believable, all the nuances, all the subtle little reactions, the exchange of glances, it’s all almost closer to the original performance. Now we can have characters with the highest fidelity, not only in cutscenes, but in the game they are the same characters, which allows us to make smooth transitions, and every part of the game has benefited from smooth transitions and emotional scenes. Our stories are about gameplay. All of these elements are designed to keep you in this world at all times (…) We have completely overhauled the art direction, starting with these expansive panoramas that not only look beautiful, but also make you feel the environment in a much more visceral way. Roofs over a capital building, for example, it’s like a breath of fresh air when you go up there and you feel such a release of intention, and then you can compare it with tunnels in the wilderness and you have this wet, flooded channel, you feel this humidity, you really can do it. feel. All of these environments are completely reimagined.” which not only look beautiful but also make you feel the environment in a much more intuitive way. Roofs over a capital building, for example, it’s like a breath of fresh air when you go up there and you feel such a release of intention, and then you can compare it with tunnels in the wilderness and you have this wet, flooded channel, you feel this humidity, you really can do it. feel. All of these environments are completely reimagined.” which not only look beautiful but also make you feel the environment in a much more intuitive way. Roofs over a capital building, for example, it’s like a breath of fresh air when you go up there and you feel such a release of intention, and then you can compare it with tunnels in the wilderness and you have this wet, flooded channel, you feel this humidity, you really can do it. feel. All of these environments are completely reimagined.” you can really feel it. All of these environments are completely reimagined.” you can really feel it. All of these environments are completely reimagined.”
- Matthew Gallant: “The original creative vision for The Last of Us, I think, in many ways was more than what the PS3 was capable of (…) physical objects in a scene that we could never do before, as it always has. The dream is to have so many destructible objects in the scene that give the impression that the world is rich and that we live in it. The materials have the expected properties. The Pittsburgh Turret Truck, when it fires at you, breaks through concrete and hurls objects left and right. This gives us a much more dynamic gameplay experience. Our artificial intelligence technology has improved tremendously. We created the AI from The Last of Us 2 and it has complex systems for things like fundamental knowledge that allows NPCs to perceive and understand what the player is doing. One of the other big improvements to the AI has to do with allies. The allied tech that we developed for The Last of Us 2 has a very complex understanding: “Okay, here the enemies can see their vulnerability.”We not only have exposure, but future exposure, so allies can know, “OK, this enemy is advancing and is about to turn towards this corner, so in three seconds, this corner will be open, so I better move now to avoid this enemy.” seeing me.”This allows the characters to make very difficult decisions and maintain a sense of stealth in a much more believable way. Another big gameplay improvement is that we have a technology called motion matching which uses logic that tries to match the desired motion against a set of hundreds of animations. The doctor in the mockup performed a whole series of movements to get a complete set of all the ways a person can move. Then, with each frame, it tries to find the animation that best matches the character’s motion path, and this motion pattern creates the feeling of a smooth transition. The player movement is much cleaner, it’s really smooth organic movement through space (…) One of the things I really like about 3D audio and The Last of Us is the ability to hear the enemy before they leave, sneak up on you and try arrange a stalker fight with 3D. the audio is so much fun. You hear them jump into another room and you hear them trying to get behind you. This two-step response—listening, turning, seeing, and reacting—reinforces the feeling of being attached to this character and to this world (…) With PS5 customization options, which the developers have in DualSense are really cool.. All weapons in The Last of Us have different resistances on their triggers when you aim them. For an arc, it works like this. From the beginning, when you start shooting, there is a slight resistance, then as the arc intensifies, the resistance increases and when you release the arc, this resistance also comes out of the trigger. When you aim and fire a shotgun, you get a tactile vibration when you fire it, and then I think that’s one way DualSense really pushes things forward, it’s a hypothetical shotgun pump vibration and something much more complex. about it on DualSense is that the effect is a bit like a speaker inside and it plays an audio file that comes through vibrations and these two beats are like what you will feel on the controller. This is also related to the new workshop animation. If you see Joel disassembling a weapon, fixing something, or inserting a new rod into the weapon, the moment he jams it, you will get tactile feedback. We have haptics for every moment you can imagine, such as climbing, jumping, landing, throwing objects, hand-to-hand combat, all these high-intensity moments are presented in haptic feedback.”
Gameplay of The Last of Us Remake
The Last of Us Part Remake will be available on PS5 on September 2nd and is in development on PC. It runs in native 4K at 30fps or dynamic 4K at 60fps.
Naughty Dog has been working with its community to accommodate some fan requests, including a perma-death mode, a speed-focused mode, and many new unlockable costumes for Joel and Ellie. The Last of Us Remake also features over 60 accessibility options, more than what the developer was able to offer in The Last of Us 2, and includes a new audio description mode to ensure the game is both useful and accessible to everyone.