‘The Last of Us Part 1’ PC Port is a Hilarious Hot Mess

The Last of Us is finally on PC. Only it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. 

The Last of Us was written and directed for the PS3 by Neil Druckmann with Bruce Straley as co-director. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where people were taken over by a mutated fungus, turning them into mindless zombies. The main story follows Joel, who’s hired by a group called the Fireflies to take a young girl named Ellie to the Massachusetts State House. Unfortunately for the two of them, nothing goes according to plan. Joel and Ellie end up fighting to survive and to get her to the Fireflies in one piece together.

For a decade the only way to experience The Last of Us was through a PlayStation console. The game was released on PS3 in 2013 and has since been remastered for PS4 in 2014, and remade for PS5 in 2022. That all changed this year when the first game was adapted into a highly successful HBO show starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. It was so successful that the PlayStation copies of the game soared in sales. Naughty Dog also announced a PC port of the game and it finally came out earlier this week. Unfortunately, not in good shape.

PC Disaster

The Last of Us Part 1 on PC was released and Steam is not happy with it. The game is at “Mostly Negative” review status after getting hammered with negative reviews. Many are citing crashes, glitches, and just a ton of visual problems that make the game unplayable. Naughty Dog has been made aware of the issues and took to Twitter to try and ease everyone’s minds about the PC port. 

They have also released a hotfix for the game to try and make the game work better for more people. The update notes also mention that Naughty Dog is working on additional improvements based on player feedback.

Unfortunately, it is still not working very well for PC players and people trying to play it on Steam Decks.

The specs for the PC version have been laid out by Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy who helped with the port. Many users who aren’t running into the most issues are doing the higher-end specs for the game. That is not bad news, but it does feel like anyone else was not considered during the release. The internet is mostly in agreement that the game just was poorly optimized for the PC, even after the delay. 

via Naughty Dog

The Funny Side of a Bad Port

The fun thing about games that come out poorly made is the glitches that are just fun to look at. The Last of Us subreddit is absolutely full of these amazing glitches. Many people playing the game on the lower end of the specs have been seeing some incredibly strange-looking Joel and Ellie models:

Credit: u/VadimH

People are also reporting just some really breathtaking issues with the game’s graphical shaders that make the game look like it is in Predator vision. The game also is just full of neon light areas and stuff that would look great in a nightclub for some.

Credit: u/official_tommy_boi

Even if you get the game to run well though, the glitches are really weird, like this one where characters will randomly just become incredibly wet:

There are also glitches involving gameplay that causes models to just go all over the place which can make some of the more stressful and intense moments an absolute hysterical mess.

Credit:u/ArgumentNo6281

Pc games ports have been pretty bad for a while with Arkham Knight being such a notoriously bad example that they removed it because they couldn’t get it to work correctly without working on it much more than a simple patch. It is a shame since PC gaming can be so much more powerful than a console when done effectively.

If you are still interested in playing The Last of Us on PC, probably give it another month or so for them to fix this mess or head first into the insanity for an experience you won’t get on the PlayStation. 

The Last of Us Part 1 is out on Steam now.

“You know, as bad as those things are, at least they’re predictable.” Bill talking about humans in the Last of Us and gamers talking about PC ports.

Author: Spider-Mike

Spider-Mike is a staff writer who is a regular co-host on the let's play channel Rage Select and regular contributor to One of US.net for over 5 years. Born in Austin, but raised on the border of Texas and Mexico. He has been gaming since the NES and jokes that he has a Masters in Spider-Man, Superman, and Dragon Ball.