REVIEWS. PERSPECTIVES. INTERVIEWS. AND SOME NUMBERS

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STILL PLAYING/ NEAR MISSES

The Last Of Us Part II Remastered PS5 Having cancelled its live-service multiplayer game, Naughty Dog has now released just one new game in the past seven years: this one. Which partly explains why it’s returning to the well just three-and-a-half years later. As a cutting-edge late-era PS4 game, it hardly screamed for a visual upgrade – certainly, the average player would struggle to detect much difference in presentation. But there are worthwhile additions. Three playable deleted scenes are present in their pre-alpha form, with commentary from designers offering insight into the challenges of high-end game development. The major draw for most, however, will be Roguelike mode No Return. Here you’re asked to survive a string of short encounters set in repurposed campaign environments, restocking and upgrading between them, and steadily unlocking new characters with distinct perks: Joel is sturdier than Ellie, for instance, but can’t duck incoming blows. Challenging and intense – with just one life, the stakes are even higher – it serves as a stress test for the game’s combat systems, which pass with flying colours. Shorn of the original narrative context that wanted you to be horrified by your own brutality, though, the death rattles and charred corpses feel especially stomachturning. And in the context of current world events, it’s hard not to recall the nucleus of the idea of ‘universal hate’ that birthed it. For all the game’s qualities, playing it now can leave an unexpectedly sour aftertaste.