The Last of Us™ Part I

At launch, the game was unplayable due to a heavy amount of bugs and VRAM issues. Naughty Dog promised patches, and after waiting a few months, I have no problems running the game bug-free on high settings. Shaders still need to be compiled with every new graphics driver version, but it takes 15 minutes for me instead of over 1 hour previously.
In its original state, the game lacked optimization for graphics cards with 8GB of VRAM. This has since been fixed. Texture streaming can now be lowered to mitigate excessive cache and allow for a better experience at the cost of textures loading in slower. Separately, VRAM usage can be reduced further by enabling DLSS if your card supports it.
As far as the actual content of the game goes, it's a 10 year old masterpiece of storytelling and immersion that is worth playing through again in its overhauled "Part 1" glory. Cutscenes are now rendered in real-time to stunning effect. Facial animations and lighting bask in realism as you become gripped with complex themes of love, loss, and survival. Woven inside of a post-apocalyptic narrative is nuanced stealth/action gameplay that can challenge any player with an array of difficulty settings. Newcomers to the franchise thanks to the HBO series are also in for a real treat.
I hope that Naughty Dog isn't dissuaded from releasing "Part 2" onto PC. If they can learn from this experience and create a functional port, I will put my money behind it because playing on PC is my preferred way to experience games.

Really, really good game. Despite having a rough launch on PC, nearly all problems were fixed. But besides that, the game itself is an absolute 10/10, please try this game out if you haven't already!!

The saddest part about this game isn't the cutscenes. It's finishing the game and knowing you'll never play it for the first time ever again.

The grounded mode is as realistic as possible. It's only at this difficulty level that you realize just how much bricks and bottles can do.

The Last of Us Part 1 is not only visually stunning, but also emotionally captivating. From the very first moment, it grips your heart and doesn't let go. Joel and Ellie's bond really shows the strength found in vulnerability and trust. The Last of Us beautifully explores the themes of loss, survival and hope in a broken world.
The emotional depth, stunning visuals, and immersive gameplay create an experience that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming. This game isn’t just about survival; it’s about the connections that make life worth living. Truly one of the most moving experiences in gaming.
It's a must play for fans of story-driven games (that like to get their hearts ripped out) ♡

For ALL the people having problems with The Last of Us Crashing at 10% during the Building Shaders process there is only 1 FIX for this and I have verified it 3 times just to be sure.
Also if you turn off the Enable Shader Pre-caching option under Steam/Setttings/Downloads that WILL NOT work either.
The New Nvidia Drivers 555.85 RELEASED ON 5/21/2024 and 555.99 RELEASED ON 6/4/2024 both of these Driver Versions will CRASH THE SHADER COMPILATION PROCESS Which in turn will CRASH The Last Of Us rendering it Unplayable.
If you use either of the 2 Versions of Nvidia Drivers listed above you will get an error message after Launching The Last Of Us during the Shader Compilation at 10% that states:
"You don't have enough Vram or Ram to play this Game at its Current Settings and then the Game will Crash.
I have VERIFIED this with Both Versions of the Drivers listed above.
Nobody likes to rollback Drivers but for the game to work again I can and have Verified that if you want to Play the game with NO PROBLEMS you must Rollback your drivers to 552.44 RELEASED on 5/9/2024.
I always like to have all my drivers up to date but if It's going to break a Game especially a Sony Title then that's a Driver I DO NOT WANT. I hope this helps somebody out there looking to Fix or Play The Last of Us until Nvidia Addresses the Situation.
I have sent Feedback to Nvidia through Gforce Feedback but Don't know if that will do any good until they decide it's of enough Importance to them to Deal with It.

Replaying it after long gaslighting “TLOU was never good” social media campaign was interesting.

I played it on the highest reasonable difficulty level (survival) this time and it was something alright. At the best of times it is one hell of a survival horror experience. The game gave me the pistol with 5 bullets in it at the very beginning and didn’t give me a single one more until I found a revolver like two hours later. This forced me to adapt and play the game in the ways I didn’t before, and it was very fun.

The AI, when the game lets it work, is pretty cool too. I don’t know if it’s shiny new remake or what, but it sometimes gives F.E.A.R a run for its money, easily. Those guys always talk to each other, can sneak up on you, successfully flank you and all that good stuff. I still remember someone yelling “She’s behind that boat” when I was behind literally the only boat cover in the entire game. Someone recorded that just for this, it’s honestly pretty impressive.

I wasted like two hours on my perfect financial district run and not a second was boring.

But unfortunately not every area is like that. Some of them were way too restrictive for the enemies and you can stealth kill everyone in them without breaking a sweat. Some of them are scripted behind all reason with obvious spawn triggers and all that. Sometimes it just devolves into the dumb shooter. And sometimes it’s just bullsh*t. Yes, the last fight of Left behind, I’m looking at you. I spent an hour on it, and unlike aforementioned financial district one – every minute was a drag. And when I found out that I just needed to go to one specific place to trigger the clickers – I was legit angry. The level design is when the game shows its age the most, and sequel did this specific thing much better.

The hard difficulty also breaks the narrative pacing a lot, to the point that I guess I can’t recommend it for the first playthrough.
Speaking of narrative – yeah, it’s still slaps. It is obviously not high art or anything, but in terms of zombie apocalypse media this is as close to perfect as it gets. Characters feel like real people, every death stings, all conversations are engaging and fun to listen to. Good stuff.

The game runs pretty alright now (august 2024), and all that graphical bells and whistles are legit gorgeous too. I don’t know if this thing is worth however they are charging on PS5, but it being the only PC version in kinda a good thing, because it’s the upgrade over original in every way. Well, unless you are into TLOU multiplayer.

P.S I played Summer -> Autumn ->Left Behind ->Winter -> Spring and I advise you to do it too, It flows super good this way and I legit don’t know why ND didn’t do it as an option.