The Final of Us Half 2 has at all times been a wonderful recreation. Look no additional than our opinions of the unique PS4 launch from method again in 2020, and the newer PS5 Remastered launch from final yr. Personally, I’ve at all times felt that the weakest a part of The Final of Us Half 2 was the truth that it felt a bit restricted by the constraints of the PS4 again when it first got here out. With the PC launch, we now probably have the definitive option to expertise a recreation we’ve repeatedly known as a masterpiece. All of it comes all the way down to how nicely Naughty Canine, together with Nixxes and Iron Galaxy have been in a position to deliver the sport to PC.
So let’s get an important issues out of the way in which first. The PC model of The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered is sort of glorious. Because the affordable {hardware} necessities that the studio had beforehand introduced would indicate, the sport is ready to make improbable use of the sources a contemporary gaming PC may give it. Throughout my time with the sport for this assessment, I performed 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 truth that I had it put in on an NVMe M.2 SSD, meant that I by no means actually skilled any technical hiccups.
All through my time with The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered, I used to be in a position to max out the graphics with out having to modify on any of the picture upscaling instruments like FSR, whereas nonetheless with the ability to preserve body charges of anyplace between 90 and 120. All of this whereas enjoying on a 1440p show with a refresh charge of 144 Hz. Operating it on the Steam Deck was additionally fairly fruitful, delivering adequate efficiency with a few of the graphics settings dialed in to get me slightly below 60 FPS. Whereas this will likely not sound that good, it’s value noting that Steam Deck video games typically are inclined to run fantastically with a body charge of 40 FPS for a superb stability between efficiency, visuals, and battery longevity.
“The PC model of The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered is sort of glorious.”
All of this excellent news additionally carries over into a few of the smaller points of the sport, like the way it truly performs. Seems the keyboard and mouse mixture is a quite glorious option to play The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered. It presents gamers loads of management and accuracy when you really want to nail that headshot, whereas additionally offering extra versatility relating to doing issues like needing to craft a fast molotov within the warmth of battle. The one actual draw back to the management scheme—one I didn’t expertise whereas briefly utilizing a DualSense controller—was what felt like an odd rendering subject.
Basically, once you’re in-game, Any UI ingredient involving the mouse tends to tank the body charge. I skilled this a number of instances with my body charge going from the excessive 90s all the way in which all the way down to 40. General, this unusual bug didn’t actually have a lot of an impact on my enjoyment of the sport, because you hardly ever want to make use of the mouse outdoors of crafting and upgrading skills anyway, and the second you permit the UI and your mouse disappears, the body charge tends to shoot again up. Whereas I’m removed from a technical professional on the matter, the difficulty feels prefer it might need one thing to do with how the mouse is being rendered. These dips within the body charge are mainly non-existent nearly anyplace else within the recreation.
Typically talking, the PC launch of The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered is a giant step up—not simply from the state of the PC port of The Final of Us Half 1, but additionally the newer PC launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Except for the minor bug involving body charges dropping in UIs with a mouse, there hasn’t actually been a lot to complain about. Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard fairly nicely, with the minute-to-minute gameplay involving each stealth in addition to motion feeling higher than ever. The truth that the title can also be Steam Deck Verified is unquestionably a candy cherry on prime of an already-excellent sundae.
“Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard fairly nicely”
With regards to the sport itself, even 5 years after its unique launch, The Final of Us Half 2 can nonetheless be thought of an authorized masterpiece. The sport tells an unimaginable, epic story of how the cycle of violence tends to harm these closest to you, and the way revenge is in the end by no means actually value it. It additionally does an unimaginable variety of smaller issues to guarantee that the general narrative hits onerous.
The narrative trick right here has been executed extremely nicely; when you begin off the sport hating Abby as a personality and spend fairly a little bit of time as Ellie in her quest for revenge, the script is actually flipped at one level. You return in time and tackle the position of Abby, and also you begin to study why she did the issues that kicked off the plot of the sport. You additionally get to see simply how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outdoor perspective, together with her kill depend getting increased and better as you progress by means of the sport.
Curiously, whereas many gamers will recognize Ellie largely as a result of they grew hooked up to her due to the occasions of the primary recreation, in The Final of Us Half 2, I discovered Abby’s components to be rather more enjoyable from a gameplay standpoint. Whereas each characters play the identical (albeit with separate improve paths and weapons), Abby’s gameplay felt much more fascinating due to the sorts of enemies you get to tackle, due to a few of the finest boss fights that Naughty Canine has ever made.
“You additionally get to see simply how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outdoor perspective”
I additionally should make particular point out for one of many strangest encounters in the complete recreation: the Rat King. Feeling like an enemy straight out of a Resident Evil recreation, the Rat King is an amalgamation of extremely sturdy cordyceps contaminated enemies, together with clickers, stalkers, and even a bloater. The whole encounter is an intense one, forcing you to make use of up nearly each useful resource you may to take it down. In a enjoyable twist, gamers additionally expertise a separate battle in opposition to a stalker that broke off from the Rat King throughout your combat with it. The entire combat, together with others you get to come across as Abby, such because the memorable ones in opposition to Tommy and Ellie, are a few of the highlights of the complete recreation, actually showcasing how nicely its intense motion gameplay works.
The core story of The Final of Us Half 2 Remastered is superb, however particular point out has to go to its gameplay. The overall gunplay and stealth each really feel so good to make use of within the recreation, that the Remastered launch on the PS5 introduced with it a completely new recreation mode with it within the type of No Return. Basically a roguelite mode that enables gamers to totally expertise the depth of The Final of Us Half 2’s stealth and fight mechanics, No Return has been a typically welcome boost since its debut. The PC launch brings in some extra content material for the mode, together with new playable characters like Marlene. The mode continues to be a wonderful option to re-experience the downright improbable gameplay of The Final of Us Half 2.
The Final of Us Half 2’s story selections stay divisive to at the present time, however no matter the place you stand, its gameplay is undeniably top-notch. Enjoying it on a high-end PC with glorious efficiency makes this model the definitive option to expertise the sport.
This recreation was reviewed on PC.
