PC ports of console games are a tough business. For Sony, there have been hitches bringing its PlayStation titles to the CPU. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves had issues with load times and stuttering before a patch was issued. And now, The Last of Us Part I on PC has myriad technical problems and bugs at launch, and this is after Naughty Dog delayed the port in the first place. Naughty Dog has already begun making hot fixes “on stability and performance improvements,” but fans are not ready to excuse the developer yet.
At the time of writing, only 33% of nearly 7,500 Steam reviews for the game are positive, with the game having “Mostly Negative” reviews. This is due to complications with random crashes, stuttering, and characters appearing wet in cutscenes. There are even some accidentally beautiful issues, like this lighting problem:
The RGB of Us pic.twitter.com/MteZOscklI
— Mischief (@MischiefsYT) March 29, 2023
These drawbacks are so widespread that Naughty Dog ended up issuing a statement:
Our team continues to monitor our support pages, submit a ticket for any issues you encounter here: https://t.co/TYF6atH208
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) March 28, 2023
As mentioned at the top, Naughty Dog has begun making hot fixes to the PC port of The Last of Us Part I to improve performance and “hitch related issues,” but there has to be more support where that came from. As things stand right now, it looks like Naughty Dog rushed this PC port out the gate to take advantage of everyone’s interest in the HBO The Last of Us show.
Sony is obviously very committed to bringing its impressive IP to PC. But for every great port like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and God of War, there are disappointments like Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us Part I. In the latter’s case, especially, it would have paid to give it more time in the oven. Developers should be patient, as fans will inevitably wait for patches to hit before spending money on a half-baked port, anyway.
