However, more GPU-intensive effects may have impacted The Last of Us Remastered's other major enhancement: 60fps gameplay, doubled from the PS3 30fps standard (and based on our
analysis videos, a target it frequently had issues sustaining). To answer the question everyone's been asking, frame-rate isn't locked to 60fps
, but The Last of Us Remastered does spend the vast majority of its time at the optimal refresh. Problems can kick in during busy combat scenes, and just like the PS3 version, particles and transparent effects in particular can take their toll - the first confrontation with a fungus-spewing Bloater sees frame-rate hit a minimum of 48fps.
The good news is that this is pretty much as bad as it got across multiple hours of gameplay, and it's telling that in the 14-minute performance analysis video below (comprised of a number of gameplay clips), the game holds its lock well for the vast majority of its duration. You'll need to skip ahead to the
nine minute mark to see the combat clips that caused genuine issues for this first iteration of the Naughty Dog engine running on PS4. At this point it has to be said that the game's day one patch was not available for testing, so there remains the possibility that things may improve once that hits - and we'll be sure to update you if that is the case.
Overall, across the majority of the run of play, frame-rate dips usually account for nothing more than occasional stutter. The locked 30fps option is a nice addition, and for those that can't stand the CG-like effect, you'll be happy it's there, but variable frame-rate consistency issues - while jarring when you experience them - are few and far between. What is interesting though is that control response feels a little heavier than we'd expect from the 60fps standard. There's always been a certain heaviness to the controls of the PS3 Naughty Dog games - especially from Uncharted 2 onwards - and it's still felt here.
Just over 15 minutes of gameplay from The Last of Us Remastered running in 60fps mode, giving a good indication of how well the game holds its lock. Overall - not bad at all. You'll need to skip ahead to around the nine minute point to see how the engine copes when it is really under load.
This may raise concerns for The Last of Us' multiplayer mode, but in actual fact, the Factions online game is a radical departure from the standard twitch shooter. There is blasting - and lots of it - while the bone-crunching melee combat from the single-player game also makes its way across, but Factions is all about tactics and stealth. Running about blasting reveals your position to the enemy - this game mode is all about taking your time, accruing supplies, building and upgrading your arsenal and letting the enemy have it via a series of surgical strikes.
It is the perfect multiplayer complement to the single-player game in that Factions isn't about instant gratification - it builds suspense, allowing skilled players to get the drop on their opponents, their demise secured often without firing a shot. Stealth kills are hugely satisfying, while the sheer brutal violence of a weapon-equipped melee kill can be quite shocking. Graphics are often pared back in multiplayer games, but The Last of Us retains its quality level more than say, Call of Duty, so in terms of judging a last-gen game by current-gen standards, Naughty Dog's title holds up very, very nicely indeed.
Frame-rate is mostly in 60fps territory for the duration, but just like the single-player mode, there are dips in the heat of the action. Our lowest reported reading came in an enclosed room with multiplayer games and saw frame-rate dip to the mid-40s, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Given the choice between an occasional wobbly 60fps and a locked 30fps, we'll take the former.
Yesterday we posted an article about key PS3 and Xbox 360 titles that were
next-gen before their time - games that were held back by the hardware they were running on, where PlayStation 4 and Xbox One could really make a difference. These titles ended up being divided into two camps: those with ready-made PC enhancements developers could draw upon, and first-party exclusives that pushed the systems to their limits.
A selection of clips from the Factions multiplayer mode, revealing that similar to the single-player game, The Last of Us Remastered mostly sticks to is 60fps target, but can drop to the mid-40s when it is - occasionally - under really heavy load.
Titles like Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition were built with scalability in mind across a vast range of potential playback platforms while the development effort on The Last of Us focused entirely on PlayStation 3 - so with the remaster, enhanced texture detail, effects precision and substantial boosts to physical and temporal resolution are your lot. Some scenes can look rather plain, while others look absolutely spectacular,
but the one thing that is constant throughout the experience is that gameplay in The Last of Us is golden. Naughty Dog mastered the popcorn Hollywood blockbuster approach to gaming with the Uncharted series, while The Last of Us sees the developer growing up, using the skills it mastered to bring us a story with believable characters and epic world-building married up with a perfect evolution of the survival horror gaming genre. In effect, it is the anti-Uncharted - rollercoaster thrills and a sense of action hero indestructibility are replaced by fear, suspense and the need to employ brains before brawn........
.
They even show bits from the MP and the colors are fukkin' poppin'. It looks so clear 
Just another day to go.
yeah
