Eventually, Naughty Dog would bring its craft to perfection with the Last of Us games, building on everything that had worked in the Uncharted games to a polished sheen, and delivering some of the greatest titles in the history of the medium in the process. But for as great as the Last of Us games are – and I say this as someone who legitimately feels The Last of Us Part 2 is one of the greatest games of all time – they are also fundamentally very different in the mood, tone, and aesthetic they strike as compared to Uncharted. For all the similarities that the two franchises share, if you wanted that globetrotting, swashbuckling, treasure hunting adventure, filled with some great action set pieces, some great historical fiction, and maybe a supernatural twist or two? The Last of Us is very decidedly not it.

Very few things are, as it turns out. Earlier, I mentioned Tomb Raider as an inspiration for Uncharted, and within the video games medium, at least, Tomb Raider absolutely is the best equivalent. And for what it’s worth, fans of Uncharted do have potentially three other games they might like a lot to check out in the new Tomb Raider trilogy, if they haven’t checked them out already. Those games rebooted the franchise, taking inspiration from Uncharted liberally (how the tables turn, and what have you). And while none of the new Tomb Raider games ever match Uncharted’s brilliance, they are still really good in their own right. If you want more games along those lines, they are well worth checking out.

But those games themselves are old now, and the Tomb Raider franchise has itself been inactive in terms of new releases for almost as long as Uncharted has. Inherently, it’s not unreasonable to assume that if there was any Uncharted fan who wanted more games along those lines, the seven years that have passed since the release of the final game in the modern Tomb Raider trilogy have provided more than enough time for them to look into those games for their fix. So pointing to Tomb Raider hardly helps here.

Where hope comes from for Uncharted fans in these cases ends up being a very, very unlikely game– in more ways than one. This month, Microsoft will release MachineGames’ fantastic Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5. The game, which launched in December last year for Xbox Series X/S and PC to great acclaim, is being brought over to the PS5 as part of Microsoft’s continued multiplatform publishing push. Admittedly, the idea of a Microsoft game acting as a stand in for a flagship PlayStation franchise is hilarious, as is the idea that Indiana Jones, the granddaddy of Uncharted and Tomb Raider to begin with, has come in with an eleventh hour win here- but the game’s quality speaks for itself. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a marvelous single player action adventure game that really hits the perfect tone and aesthetic, takes players to multiple locations around the world on a globetrotting treasure hunting story, has a great historical fiction infused central plot and mystery, and has some really strong storytelling- which, of course, is typical for MachineGames.

They are obviously not perfect equivalents. Indiana Jones is largely a first person game, for starters, which creates a fundamental change to the flow of the moment to moment gameplay. It is also far less focused on combat than the Uncharted games. Naughty Dog’s franchise is, of course, so combat focused that it has given rise to a whole class of memes about how the series’ protagonist Nathan Drake is a mass murderer (and even led to the rise in awareness of ludonarrative dissonance, and what it may mean when it comes to video games). Anyone who has seen the Indiana Jones movies, of course, knows that that level of killing and violence isn’t exactly what the eponymous main character is known for. And so it makes sense that The Great Circle de-emphasizes action.

Instead, the game is designed almost like an immersive sim. Rather than guiding players through linear areas interspersing light platforming and puzzle solving with heavy combat encounters, The Great Circle moves players into small sandbox style semi open areas, giving players objectives but mostly leaving it to them to figure out how to go about them. In other words, it almost plays like an immersive sim lite. In any area, in any part of the game, Indiana Jones will have to contend with a lot of armed opponents, but he will rarely be shooting them away in grand shootouts. Instead, The Great Circle emphasizes stealth and melee combat, it emphasizes puzzles, and it emphasizes exploration and discovery within its areas for players to figure out how to progress.

This is a fundamentally different type of game than Uncharted in that sense. If you were in it purely for linear and high octane action packed gameplay, and the roller coaster style set pieces and combat encounters that Uncharted is known for, then little in The Great Circle would scratch that itch (though it does admittedly have some excellent set pieces). At the end of the day, it’s not really going for that sort of experience, so if that’s the sort of Uncharted-style game you’re looking for, your search for something new that fills that niche is sadly going to have to continue.

However, for other fans, who primarily want Uncharted’s pulpy, high octane, swashbuckling tone, its globe trotting adventure stories blending fact and fiction, for those fans who want Uncharted’s vibes more than anything, The Great Circle is a fantastic pick, one that carves out a very comfortable place for itself in the pantheon that Naughty Dog and Uncharted had monopolized for the better part of two decades now. That’s an amazing feat, and hopefully, MachineGames gets the chance to build on that with the follow up to this game.

As for Uncharted? Hopefully, a new one of those is on the horizon as well. Thankfully we have something great and new that has a lot of the same vibes– but MachineGames’ take on Indy is ultimately its own thing (which is arguably one of the reasons it’s so good, and doesn’t just suffer from a knock-off syndrome). It’s not the exact alchemy that led Uncharted to becoming one of the most beloved brands in the industry. When the next one of those is coming is anyone’s guess– in a couple of years, it will have been a whole ten years since the last time the franchise was active. Hopefully there’s a new release well before then.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

As reported by Deadline, on Sunday, episode 1 of The Last of Us’ second season had over 5.3 million viewers in the US across all platforms that the show streamed on. That’s up from the Season 1 premiere in 2023 – which drew 4.7 million US viewers on day one – by 10 percent. The latter went on to amass over 32 million total viewers, so it should be interesting to see how Season 2’s debut fares.

Interestingly, Deadline also reports that viewership for Season 1 also increased by 150 percent in the week leading up to Season 2’s premiere.

The Last of Us Season 2 has six more episodes left, with the next coming on April 20. Check out a new trailer for the upcoming episodes through here. HBO has also officially greenlit a third season.

From tense encounters with different types of Infected and personal drama between Ellie, Joel, and others to explosive conflict between the WLF and the Seraphites in Seattle and more, plenty is coming up that fans of the source material will be familiar with. As the season’s first episode indicated, however, the show will seemingly continue to expand on The Last of Us Part 2’scontent with its own additions. Check out the trailer below. 

Season 2 of The Last of Us has six more episodes left in its ongoing second season, with the next set to premiere on April 20. A third season has also already been officially greenlit.

Naughty Dog has announced The Last of Us Complete, which, as its name suggests, is a bundle that compiles The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered in a single package. It is digitally available for PS5 today, though a physical release is also on the way. A Collector’s Edition will launch on June 10, coming with a collector’s box with new artwork, lithographs, a steelbook case, and the comic The Last of Us: American Dreams. 

The Collector’s Edition is available to pre-order exclusively via PlayStation Direct, and is priced at $120. 

Meanwhile, Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation kicks off on April 13. A third season has also been officially greenlit. 

HBO announced the news via the official Max Twitter account, accompanying it with a brief teaser that shows… nothing. Given that Season 2 itself hasn’t even premiered its first episode yet, that much, at least, is understandable.

Season 2 of The Last of Us premieres this Sunday, on April 13. In addition to bringing back Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, and Gabriel Luna as Tommy, the new season is also introducing several new key characters in the form of Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, Isabela Merced’s Dina, Young Mazino’s Jesse, and others.

Season 2 will consist of seven episodes, and will cover only part of The Last of Us Part 2– which means we can expect the show to continue to focus on the 2020 game in its third season.

It can’t be for nothing. Season 3 is coming. #TheLastOfUs pic.twitter.com/q5HxyvK9O6

— Max (@StreamOnMax) April 9, 2025

Though it received a free update for the PS5 that included 30 FPS and 60 FPS options, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is a proper paid upgrade over the PS5 version. While it’s not a massive graphical overhaul, it does offer new modes, including the rogue-like No Return and Lost Levels, three levels cut from the game alongside extensive developer commentary. You can also engage in Guitar Free Play or try to complete the story as quickly as possible in Speedrun Mode.

Over a year later, the remaster finally comes to PC on April 3rd, as Naughty Dog teams up with Nixxes and Iron Galaxy. Is it a massive improvement over the PS5 version? Is it the definitive way to play the classic? Of course, after The Last of Us Part 1’s disastrous launch on PC and the mixed bag that some first-party PS5 ports (like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2) have been, some skepticism is understandable. Let’s dive in and find out.

What’s New With the PC Version?

Considering that The Last of Us Part 2, both the original and remastered, doesn’t offer ray tracing, it’s no surprise that it isn’t on the table with this PC port. What it offers is Ultrawide monitor support, whether you’re rocking a 21:9, 32:9 or 48:9 resolution display, not to mention triple-monitor set-ups. Upscalers like Nvidia DLSS 3 Super Resolution, AMD FSR 3.1, Intel XeSS and AMD FSR 4, alongside Frame Generation and DirectStorage, are also supported. You can also enable Vsync and output much higher frame rates than the PS5. But how heavy will all this be on your system?

PC Requirements and Test Rig Configuration

Regarding PC requirements, Naughty Dog, Nixxes and Iron Galaxy offer a decent range of scalability. While you only need an Intel Core i3-8100 or an AMD Ryzen 3 1300X on the Minimum end, a GeForce GTX 1650 or Radeon RX 5500XT is required along with 16 GB of RAM, which is enough for 720p/30 FPS at Low settings. On the recommended side for 1080p/60 FPS on Medium settings, you’ll need a Core i5-8600 or Ryzen 5 3600, an RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 5700, and 16 GB RAM.

Playing at 1440p/60 FPS on High settings requires a Core i7-9700K or a Ryzen 7 3700X, an RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6800, and 16 GB of RAM. If you’re aiming for the highest quality standard, namely 4K/60 FPS at Very High settings, you’ll need a Core i7-11700 or a Ryzen 7 5700X CPU, an RTX 4080 or RX 7900XT and 32 GB RAM. And while it’s roughly 79 GB on PS5, a whopping 150 GB of installation space is required for the PC port (SSD mandatory). Our rig has an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and 32 GB of RAM.

Graphical Options and Our Settings

On top of upscalers, DirectStorage support, and whatnot, the big appeal of the PC port is adjustable graphics options. You can adjust the Level of Detail, Reflection Quality, Texture Quality and Filtering, Shadow Quality, Depth of Field Quality, Refraction Quality, Particle Density, and much more.

For our settings, we went with DLSS set to Quality at 3840×2160 resolution, 60 Hz as the refresh rate and frame rate capped at 360. DLAA and Vsync are enabled while pretty much every option is set to Very High, though no changes were made to the Field of View, and dynamic resolution scaling is off.

PC Performance

If the performance of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC made you skeptical of future first-party ports, rest assured. The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s frame rate runs at a solid 60 frames per second throughout with very minimal drops. It’s impressive given the sheer amount of detail and effects at 4K, whether you’re admiring the lights in town or venturing through snow-covered fields, escaping from a horde of infected. Facial and character animations also look as nuanced and natural as ever, with stunning image clarity bringing all the little details – like freckles, snowflakes, and whatnot – to the forefront.

However, there are some drawbacks. In an early scene with Abby and Owen, the latter’s hair glitches out in places. It happens again later on and though it’s not super-prevalent, the times it does occur are impossible to miss. There are also ghosting issues, which are subtle in the mansion scene, again with Owen’s hair, but they’re much more noticeable when Ellie sprints through the snow on horseback. At first, it seemed restricted to cutscenes, but you may even notice it during gameplay while moving at a measured pace. There aren’t any major glitches or performance troubles otherwise.

PC vs PS5 (Fidelity and Performance)

On the PS5, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered offers Performance and Fidelity modes. The former runs at 1440p/60 frames per second, while the latter offers native 4K and 30 frames per second. Those with a 120 Hz output can mess around with the PS5’s VRR settings to achieve higher unlocked frame rates, but we stuck to the default.

Both modes offer stable frame rates on the console, but Fidelity mode packs better image clarity, especially in distant details and aspects like foliage. The trade-off is the frame rate, of course. With the PC version, you get the best of both worlds. Sections like riding through the fields as Joel and gazing upon Jackson from a distance while the sun shines really highlight how well the visuals have held up through the years, even if some ghosting is visible at times.

Conclusion

When you look back at the series’ debut on PC with The Last of Us Part 1, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is on a completely different level. Yes, the ghosting can get distracting, and there is the odd visual glitch with Owen’s hair, but it’s backed by excellent performance, gorgeous visuals all around and no major bugs (at least none we observed in our hands-on time).

As always, your mileage can vary depending on the hardware and settings, but seeing this level of fidelity with most settings on Very High and at 4K with a mostly locked 60 FPS on an RTX 3080 Ti is pretty impressive. If you’re a PC player waiting to continue the story since Part 1 dropped, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered comes highly recommended.

As per SteamDB, on its PC launch day, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered saw a peak of 23,350 concurrent players on Steam. Those aren’t necessary groundbreaking numbers, but presumably, they will continue to rise over the game’s first weekend.

In comparison, The Last of Us Part 1 has a peak of 36,496 concurrent Steam players. It should be interesting to see whether its sequel can surpass it. One area where it has got off to a decidedly better start is its reception. Where Part 1’s PC port was widely criticized upon release, Part 2 has a Very Positive user review rating on Steam at the time of writing, with 91 percent of its 1000-and-odd user ratings being positive.

The Last of Us Part 2 is available on PS5, PS4, and PC. Read our review of the PC port through here. Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation is also coming later this month.

So let’s get the most important things out of the way first. The PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is quite excellent. As the reasonable hardware requirements that the studio had previously announced would imply, the game is able to make fantastic use of the resources a modern gaming PC can give it. During my time with the game for this review, I played on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM. This, paired with the fact that I had it installed on an NVMe M.2 SSD, meant that I never really experienced any technical hiccups.

Throughout my time with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, I was able to max out the graphics without having to switch on any of the image upscaling tools like FSR, while still being able to maintain frame rates of anywhere between 90 and 120. All of this while playing on a 1440p display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz. Running it on the Steam Deck was also quite fruitful, delivering good enough performance with some of the graphics settings dialed in to get me just under 60 FPS. While this may not sound that good, it is worth noting that Steam Deck games often tend to run fantastically with a frame rate of 40 FPS for a good balance between performance, visuals, and battery longevity.

"The PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is quite excellent."

All of this good news also carries over into some of the smaller aspects of the game, like how it actually plays. Turns out the keyboard and mouse combination is a rather excellent way to play The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. It offers players a lot of control and accuracy when you really need to nail that headshot, while also providing more versatility when it comes to doing things like needing to craft a quick molotov in the heat of battle. The only real downside to the control scheme—one I didn’t experience while briefly using a DualSense controller—was what felt like a strange rendering issue.

Essentially, when you’re in-game, Any UI element involving the mouse tends to tank the frame rate. I experienced this multiple times with my frame rate going from the high 90s all the way down to 40. Overall, this strange bug didn’t really have much of an effect on my enjoyment of the game, since you rarely need to use the mouse outside of crafting and upgrading abilities anyway, and the moment you leave the UI and your mouse disappears, the frame rate tends to shoot back up. While I am far from a technical expert on the matter, the issue feels like it might have something to do with how the mouse is being rendered. These dips in the frame rate are basically non-existent just about anywhere else in the game.

Generally speaking, the PC release of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is a big step up—not just from the state of the PC port of The Last of Us Part 1, but also the more recent PC release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Aside from the minor bug involving frame rates dropping in UIs with a mouse, there hasn’t really been much to complain about. Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard quite well, with the minute-to-minute gameplay involving both stealth as well as action feeling better than ever. The fact that the title is also Steam Deck Verified is definitely a sweet cherry on top of an already-excellent sundae.

"Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard quite well"

When it comes to the game itself, even five years after its original release, The Last of Us Part 2 can still be considered a certified masterpiece. The game tells an incredible, epic tale of how the cycle of violence tends to hurt those closest to you, and how revenge is ultimately never really worth it. It also does an incredible number of smaller things to make sure that the overall narrative hits hard.

The narrative trick here has been executed incredibly well; while you start off the game hating Abby as a character and spend quite a bit of time as Ellie in her quest for revenge, the script is essentially flipped at one point. You go back in time and take on the role of Abby, and you start to learn why she did the things that kicked off the plot of the game. You also get to see just how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outside perspective, with her kill count getting higher and higher as you progress through the game.

Interestingly, while many players will appreciate Ellie largely because they grew attached to her thanks to the events of the first game, in The Last of Us Part 2, I found Abby’s parts to be much more fun from a gameplay standpoint. While both characters play the same (albeit with separate upgrade paths and weapons), Abby’s gameplay felt a lot more interesting because of the kinds of enemies you get to take on, thanks to some of the best boss fights that Naughty Dog has ever made.

"You also get to see just how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outside perspective"

I also have to make special mention for one of the strangest encounters in the entire game: the Rat King. Feeling like an enemy straight out of a Resident Evil game, the Rat King is an amalgamation of incredibly strong cordyceps infected enemies, including clickers, stalkers, and even a bloater. The entire encounter is an intense one, forcing you to use up just about every resource you can to take it down. In a fun twist, players also experience a separate battle against a stalker that broke off from the Rat King during your fight with it. The whole fight, along with others you get to encounter as Abby, such as the memorable ones against Tommy and Ellie, are some of the highlights of the entire game, really showcasing how well its intense action gameplay works.

The core story of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is excellent, but special mention has to go to its gameplay. The general gunplay and stealth both feel so good to use in the game, that the Remastered release on the PS5 brought with it an entirely new game mode with it in the form of No Return. Essentially a roguelite mode that allows players to fully experience the depth of The Last of Us Part 2’s stealth and combat mechanics, No Return has been a generally great addition since its debut. The PC release brings in some more content for the mode, including new playable characters like Marlene. The mode continues to be an excellent way to re-experience the downright fantastic gameplay of The Last of Us Part 2.

The Last of Us Part 2’s story choices remain divisive to this day, but regardless of where you stand, its gameplay is undeniably top-notch. Playing it on a high-end PC with excellent performance makes this version the definitive way to experience the game.

This game was reviewed on PC.

It is worth noting that the leak doesn’t specify which one of the two games in the franchise will be part of the new release. In their post, Billbil-kun posits that it could be either The Last of Us Part 1, The Last of Us Part 2, or even potentially a bundle of both titles.

“According to our information, a new special edition of a game from the franchise The Last of Us is being prepared with a physical release on PS5,” posted Billbil-kun on Dealabs (translation via Firefox). “However, we have not yet been able to determine which game it is: would it be for the first part, the second, a pack of the 2 or even for a hypothetical Part III? Only the future will tell us.”

While speculation might be fun, it is highly unlikely that Naughty Dog has been able to work on a third title in the franchise with this degree of secrecy. The price, according to the leak, will sit at around $109.99. This pricing would indicate that this new release would be a bundle of both games. It is also possible that this might be a special bundle that also includes elements from the TV adaptation of The Last of Us.

This special edition bundle is rumoured to be announced relatively soon, and pre-orders are expected to start off over the next couple of months. This timeframe would indicate that Sony might unveil it in either late May or early June. Interestingly, the timeframe will also end up covering the runtime for the second season of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us.

In the meantime, both Naughty Dog and Sony, alongside support studios Iron Galaxy and Nixxes, are getting ready for the April 3 PC release of The Last of Us Part 2. Naughty Dog also confirmed recently that The Last of Us Part 2‘s PC release has been Steam Deck Verified.

On paper, this is supposed to mean that not only will The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered run on the Steam Deck, but it will also include special features for the handheld gaming platform, including optimised settings and UI modification options to account for the smaller display.

The PC specs that will be required to run The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered have also been revealed, ranging from modest hardware like Intel’s Core i7-9700K and AMD’s Ryzen 7 3700X, to more recent hardware like Intel’s Core i7-11700 and AMD’s Ryzen 7 5700X when it came to CPUs.

The game also includes support for PC-specific features, including super sampling through DLSS 3 and FSR 4, as well as support for ultrawide displays across a host of aspect ratios, from 21:9 to 32:9 and even 48:9.

For more details about The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered on PC, here’s everything you need to know.

One of the biggest points of discussion for the original The Last of Us has been whether protagonist Joel was correct in making the decision that he made at the end of the game and the first series. For some context, a major part of The Last of Us revolves around Joel trying to escort Ellie to some doctors. Since Ellie is immune to the zombie apocalypse caused by the cordyceps, the doctors want to conduct surgery on her in order to try and find a cure.

Joel, having grown close to Ellie as he spent more and more time with her over the course of the game (and the first season of the show), decides that the fact that Ellie won’t survive the surgery is an unacceptable outcome, and murders his way through the Firefly base and kills the doctors that are about to operate on Ellie before they can get started.

“I believe Joel was right,” Druckmann said when asked about his thoughts on the matter during a press tour before the second season of The Last of Us premieres. “If I were in Joel’s position, I hope I would be able to do what he did to save my daughter.”

“But I’d like to think that I wouldn’t,” responded showrunner Craig Mazin. “That’s the interesting push and pull of the morality of it. And that’s why the ending of the first game is so provocative and so wonderful. It just doesn’t let you off the hook as a player.”

“People get to the end of [the game] and there is that question, what would you do? What should you do if faced with the opportunity to save the world, if you sacrifice your child. That goes back to Abraham and Isaac. It’s so profound. The notion of sacrifice to save the world.”

“It’s a difference between, OK, if I had to kill a random person to save who knows how many lives, in the abstract, you would say, well, yeah, that makes sense, of course,” said Druckmann, continuing on from Mazin. “But now, remove it from being a random person and it’s your kid. Now the answer is very different.”

Members of the TV adaptation’s cast have also offered up their own thoughts on whether Joel was ultimately correct in his decision. Interestingly, Bella Ramsey (who plays Ellie in the show) believes that Joel indeed saved a world. “Yeah, he saved his world, just not the world,” she said.

Season 2 of The Last of Us is all set to premiere on April 13. The show will feature Pedro Pascal reprising his role as Joel, along with Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby. In the meantime, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is also going to make its way on to PC later this week.