The Last of Us: The Last of Us Part I
Naughty Dog · Horror, Shooter, Survival, Action
Overview
Discover the award-winning game that inspired the critically acclaimed television show. Guide Joel and Ellie through a post-apocalyptic America, and encounter unforgettable allies and enemies in The Last of Us™.
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Experience the emotional storytelling and unforgettable characters in The Last of Us™, winner of over 200 Game of the Year awards.
In a ravaged civilization, where infected and hardened survivors run rampant, Joel, a weary protagonist, is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of a military quarantine zone. However, what starts as a small job soon transforms into a brutal cross-country journey.
Includes the complete The Last of Us single-player story and celebrated prequel chapter, Left Behind, which explores the events that changed the lives of Ellie and her best friend Riley forever.
Built for PC
The Last of Us Part I PC release brings with it plenty of PC features to bring Joel and Ellie’s tense and unforgettable journey to life. This version of The Last of Us Part I is optimized for PC with PC-centric quality-of-life enhancements. Part I will feature AMD FSR 2.2 support*, Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution support*, VSync and frame rate cap options, and a host of features designed specifically for PC, including adjustable Texture Quality, Shadows, Reflections, Ambient Occlusion, and more.
Through the experiences of Joel and Ellie, PC players can fully immerse themselves in beautiful yet haunting environments in stunning detail with true 4K resolutions**. From the harsh, oppressive streets of the Boston QZ to the overgrown and abandoned homes of Bill’s Town to so much more, embark on a beautiful journey across the United States of America with Ultra-Wide Monitor Support for both 21:9 Ultrawide and 32:9 Super Ultrawide aspect ratios.
Experience all these locations, stealthily sneaking through abandoned homes and cities (and picking their drawers and cabinets clean looking for supplies) or engage in tense, captivating action with 3D audio support to better hear the rustle of leaves, the crack of glass, or the footfalls of enemies trying to ambush you***.
AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution 2
Supercharge your framerates and fight for survival as Joel and Ellie with next-level temporal upscaling technology from AMD. FSR 2 uses cutting-edge algorithms to boost your framerates and deliver high-quality, high-resolution game experiences in The Last of Us Part I across a wide range of compatible graphics cards.
Peripheral Support
The Last of Us Part I on PC features DualSense support through a wired connection so players can feel the impact of battle, the rumble of a tank rolling by, and so much more through haptic feedback and dynamic triggers. With support for the DualShock 4 controller, a wide range of other gamepads, and keyboard and mouse, players can adjust their playstyle to suit their preferences. The PC release includes a number of new control customization options including full control remapping, primary and secondary bindings for keyboard and mouse control, an adaptive mode that allows players to combine keyboard and controller inputs, and more. Part I’s PC launch will also include The Last of Us Part I’s suite of accessibility features so that players can adjust the experience to suit their needs and preferences.
* Compatible PC and graphics card required for enhanced graphics.
** Compatible PC, graphics card, and 4K display device required.
*** 3D Audio requires stereo headphones or compatible speakers.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,998 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Reviewers keep calling The Last of Us Part I one of the best stories in games. A quarter of all reviews use "masterpiece", "peak", "best game", "10/10" or similar superlatives. The praise centres on Joel and Ellie's relationship, the facial animation and performances, Gustavo Santaolalla's score, and tense fights where ammo is scarce. Returning PlayStation players say the remake holds up, and some newcomers who came from the HBO show say they prefer the game.
The PC port draws the most complaints: 44% of negative reviews name a technical problem, crashes and performance above all. This slice under-represents the troubled March 2023 launch. Only 307 of its reviews date from 2023, those are less positive (86%) than recent ones, and Steam's lifetime rating of about 85% positive sits well below the slice's 94%. Reviews written from July 2025 on mention technical problems far less often than older ones (9.5% against 27%), but crash reports keep arriving in 2026, including from reviewers with RTX 5080 cards, and a few reviewers say whether it runs well comes down to luck and hardware.
Price is a smaller complaint: a full-price remake of a 2013 game with a campaign reviewers put at 15 to 20 hours. A minority also find the gameplay linear, repetitive or overrated.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Joel, Ellie and the storyHigh
The story is the most discussed part of the game. Reviewers single out the relationship between Joel and Ellie, which grows from a smuggling job into something like father and daughter, along with the prologue, Bill, Henry and Sam, and the ending. One reviewer wrote that "Joel's final choice still hits like a freight train." Some players went out of their way to read the notes and environmental details that tell side stories.
Some reviewers say the game made them cry. One short review put it as "Bought it for the gameplay. Stayed for Joel and Ellie. Left emotionally damaged." Another wrote: "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."
A handful of reviewers found the ending unsatisfying or the plot clichéd. Others push back on the hype while still recommending the game: "it isn't the 11/10 absolute masterpiece people say it is," wrote one, who found the gameplay slow and repetitive (see Pacing, linearity and repetition).
A remake that looks the partHigh
The facial animation gets specific praise, because so much of the acting happens in small reactions: "So much storytelling happens through lingering shots of people reacting to something someone else says." Players also praise the lighting, the overgrown cities and the gore, and a few mention photo mode.
People who played it on PS3 or PS4, or are replaying it, are a visible group in the longer reviews. Several say the remake does the original justice and is the best way to replay it. A few call the remake unnecessary, miss the Remastered edition's lower price and multiplayer, or say the PC version needs a strong graphics card to look its best (see Stutter, VRAM and heavy hardware demands).
Tense, scarce-resource combat and stealthMedium
Fans of the combat describe fights where every bullet counts, brutal gore, and a workbench upgrade system with satisfying animations. Stealth has its defenders, including one reviewer who called it "one of the most solid stealth systems of the last fifteen years." Several experienced players recommend the harder difficulties: "I fully recommend playing this game on Grounded difficulty."
Fans also list recurring irritations. Ammo scarcity can feel staged ("once they're all dead, I only find 2 bullets"), chokehold animations get long, and allies break the tension: "When Ellie or another companion runs straight through danger and enemies magically ignore them, it can break the tension." One reviewer said the combat isn't the best because "the enemy A.I. is extremely intelligent and out maneuvers you by way of flanking."
Music, voice acting and atmosphereMedium
Reviewers praise the score, some naming Gustavo Santaolalla, and credit Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson for the voice acting. They describe the atmosphere as quiet and lonely, broken by clickers and bloaters that genuinely scared them, and a few single out the main menu theme.
Difficulty options, accessibility and extrasLow
Players appreciate that difficulty can be changed at any time, the range from Very Light to Grounded, the accessibility settings carried over from Part II, and the post-game modifiers, skins and New Game Plus. A smaller group praises ultrawide support (including cutscenes) and DualSense haptics on PC. One negative review complained that the filters and skins only unlock after finishing the game.
Left BehindLow
More of the reviews that mention the included Left Behind chapter praise it than dismiss it. Fans say it deepens Ellie's story ("The Left Behind DLC is incredibly good."), while a minority find it short, slow or skippable: "Left Behind addon should be skipped, because its a waste of time."
Where players are split
Full price for a 2013 storyMedium
Price comes up in 10% of negative reviews, and buying it on sale is a recurring piece of advice. Some reviewers tie the price to the game's age and length. One said "charging 60€ for a 12 years old game that was re-released a couple of times is simply bonkers, even if it worked well," and another, who put the campaign at 20 hours, advised: "I picked this game up at a 10€ sale, and I would suggest you do the same." Other reviewers say the story is worth whatever they paid, and one who already owned it on another platform advised against buying it again.
Pacing, linearity and repetitionMedium
13% of negative reviews call the game boring, repetitive or overrated. Critics of the pacing describe a linear chain of arenas, a slow middle stretch ("the middle of the game is just such a slug to go through"), and a game that works better as a film: "It's better to watch a retelling of the plot with cutscenes or the recent TV series." One negative review sums it up as "Awful gameplay for an ok story." Defenders answer that the linear structure keeps the story focused and that encounters can be played with stealth or with guns.
Coming to it from the TV showMedium
Players who watched the HBO series before playing say the game still works when you know the plot, and several prefer the game's characters: "Ellie is a lot more likable than her show persona." One conceded that "the only thing the HBO series did better was give Tess and Joel motivation to leave Boston," and a few say watching the show first took something away from the game.
Keyboard, mouse and weapon switchingLow
Input splits players. Some found keyboard and mouse more responsive than a controller ("I think I enjoyed the game even more playing with keyboard & mouse"), while others fought the real-time weapon menu: "This game desperately needs a paused weapon wheel." Another wrote that "The weapon-switching menu is awkward to use in the middle of a fight." A few recommend a PlayStation controller instead ("I recommend playing this game with a PS controller."), and one Steam Deck owner said an Xbox controller wasn't detected.
Part I against Part IILow
Some reviewers finish by saying they are going on to Part II. Direct comparisons go both ways, from "honestly better than part 2" to "not gonna lie pt 2 is better but you NEED to play this first."
What frustrates players
Crashes and freezesHigh
Crashes come up in 23% of negative reviews, some from players who otherwise like the game: "Love it, but it crashes a ridiculous amount, and it feels like there's at least 2-3 crashes per chapter."
These reports are not confined to launch. 3.5% of reviews written in 2026 (204) describe crashes. Owners of top-end PCs report them too, from an RTX 4090 owner in July 2025 ("BTW, I have a 13900K, RTX 4090, and 64 GB RAM, so it wasn't my rig.") to RTX 5080 owners in September 2026. Reviewers name places where the game freezes or crashes repeatedly, such as Lincoln, Pittsburgh, the cutscene after the sniper section and the fight with David. A few describe workarounds: lowering settings until the game used about half the graphics memory ("When I set my graphics settings so that the game required about 50% of my VRAM, the game would stop crashing"), capping the frame rate, or updating drivers. One reviewer said the crashes were "made far less frustrating by the excellent save system."
Stutter, VRAM and heavy hardware demandsMedium
Performance problems come up in 22% of negative reviews. Reviewers describe frame drops while sprinting or in dense areas, CPU use hitting 100% (for one, as soon as the frame rate went past 60 fps), high temperatures, and recommended specs they consider unrealistic: "recommending a 8gb 3060 as a gpu is a joke." An RTX 5090 owner wrote in September 2025: "I constantly get stuttering in different areas of the game, and have very frequent crashes, all while on a 5090." Even a positive review that calls the story, combat and world design top notch adds: "Only flaw is its optimization."
Other players report smooth play at 1440p on mid-to-high-end cards, and one wrote of "perfect optimization, full ultrawide support (including in cutscenes), and no bugs at all." A reviewer who had to work around repeated crashes put it this way: "It's really a coin toss if the game will run well for you or not." A 2026 review describes the change since release as "Abysmal launch, great game now."
Glitches, soft-locks and texture bugsMedium
Bugs, glitches, texture problems and soft-locks come up in 13.5% of negative reviews. The visual bugs are the long-running ones, still reported in 2025 and 2026: hair rendering errors ("I don't understand how this still has the weird hair bug so many years after release"), textures that fail to load or turn black ("half the ground textures being pure black"), LOD pop-in and brief T-poses in cutscenes. Progress bugs are rarer and do more damage, such as companions or pallets stuck in the scenery, and a save near the David fight that "just soft locked and then would crash every time I loaded back up the save." A few players report that the achievement for hearing all of Ellie's jokes won't unlock, and one reports audio drifting out of sync in cutscenes.
Shader compilation and long loadsMedium
Shader compilation complaints fall from 6.9% of reviews written before July 2025 to 0.9% after. They are about how long the build takes and how often it repeats. One reviewer wrote in July 2025 that "The game takes AN HOUR TO BUILD SHADERS" and that any driver or Windows update triggers a full rebuild, another counted "57 mins of 'play' was shader loading" against the refund window, and reviews from 2026 still describe long rebuilds after driver updates. Load times draw fewer complaints, including "NO Fast Loading like the PS5 Version."
Factions multiplayer is missingLow
A small number of reviews miss the Factions multiplayer mode, many of them from returning players: "The omission of Factions is a crushing disappointment," and "unfortunately they removed the Factions Multiplayer part which was a lot of fun." Some tie it to the price, since the cheaper Remastered edition included multiplayer.
Ladders, planks and palletsLow
Some reviews complain that the ladder, plank and pallet puzzles used to get Ellie across water and up ledges repeat between every fight: "Puzzle solutions and traversal repeat a lot, feel lazy and are disappointing." Others joke about them fondly: "Lots of ladders, lots of tears," "Plank moving simulator. Still goated," and "Ellie please learn how to swim. I cant keep fetching these wooden pallets for you every time."
Steam Deck and LinuxLow
Steam Deck owners are divided. Some report it "Actually runs well on Steam Deck at 40fps, low-medium settings," while others report crashes, low frame rates, audio crackle and controls that stop responding after sleep mode, and several say it doesn't deserve its Verified badge: "This is not what I would call steam deck verified." Linux players mention needing specific Proton versions.
3. The player conversation
The conversation is warm and often reverent. The negative side is small (6% of reviews, 577), and the port is its main subject: 44% of negative reviews name a technical problem, 13% call the game boring, repetitive or overrated, and 10% bring up price. 9% of negative reviews praise the game in the same review that names a technical problem.
Returning PS3 and PS4 players compare the remake with what they remember, praise the faces and lighting, and are among those who miss Factions and resent paying again. Newcomers arriving from the HBO series talk about how the game and the show differ. Reviewers who wrote within their first three hours of play mention crashes about twice as often as everyone else (8% against 4%), and the same goes for performance problems, which fits complaints about crashing or compiling shaders on first launch.
Among the 307 reviews from 2023 that remain in the slice, 21% (65) mention an edit, fix or patch, often an update to say the port now runs well. Technical terms drop from 27% of reviews written before July 2025 to 9.5% of those written after, and shader complaints nearly disappear. Month by month from July 2025 to October 2026, the positive share stayed between 92% and 96%, with its lowest points in August and September 2025. Crash reports continue into 2026, including from RTX 5080 owners, which suggests the fixes have not reached every machine.
4. What the developers could do
- Hunt down the remaining crash paths. Crashes come up in 23% of negative reviews. Reviewers report them on RTX 4090 and 5090 machines in 2025 and on RTX 5080 machines in 2026, at named spots such as the cutscene after the sniper section and the David fight.
- Lower VRAM and CPU demands. One reviewer says the crashes stopped only when the settings kept graphics memory use near half, and others report CPU use at 100%, including during shader builds.
- Fix the long-standing visual and progress bugs. Hair rendering, black or unloaded textures, LOD pop-in, the David soft-lock and the Ellie's jokes achievement come up across years of reviews.
- Stop full shader rebuilds after every driver update. Reviewers describe waits of up to an hour that return after GPU driver or Windows updates and eat into the refund window.
- Price it for a 2013 game with a 15 to 20 hour campaign. Price comes up in 10% of negative reviews, reviewers advise buying on sale, and returning players point out that the cheaper Remastered edition included multiplayer.
- Add a paused or slowed weapon wheel for keyboard and mouse. Players call the real-time weapon menu awkward in fights and ask for it to pause the action.
- Make the Steam Deck version live up to its Verified badge. Several Deck owners say the game doesn't deserve the badge, reporting crashes, low frame rates, audio crackle and controls that stop responding after sleep mode.
