The first ratings for The Last of Us Part II Remastered, an improved version of the action-adventure The Last of Us Part II from Naughty Dog, have appeared on the review aggregator sites Metacritic and OpenCritic.
Image source: Naughty Dog
According to Digital Foundry, in technical terms, The Last of Us Part II Remastered is not far from the backwards compatible version running on PS5 (with a 60 fps patch released in 2021) for PS4.
The remaster cannot offer a serious upgrade in graphics and performance compared to the previous release, but it demonstrates much faster (up to three times) loading times.
Apart from technical improvements, The Last of Us Part II Remastered includes behind-the-scenes content like developer commentary and levels cut from the final game, but the latter is quite fleeting.
In addition, the remaster contains a roguelike mode, No Return, with several playable characters. As the authors of the reviews note, at first No Return is seriously captivating, but gets boring pretty quickly (there is no plot in it).
In free guitar mode, you can transform into composer Gustavo Santaolalla.
Despite these shortcomings, critics considered the remaster to be the best version of The Last of Us Part II available, especially for those unfamiliar with the original version of the game. On Metacritic and OpenCritic the project has 91 out of 100%.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered will release on January 19 on PS5. Owners of the game on PS4 will be able to upgrade for $10 and transfer saves/trophies to the advanced version. The cost of the remaster for new users is $50.