The Last of Us: Remastered is due for release on the PlayStation at the end of this month, and it arrives in fine form as a completely remastered game from the PlayStation 3. Naughty Dog ramped up the character models (or rather, unlocked their higher definition LOD models) upped the texture resolution, upped the resolution itself and unlocked the frame-rate to 60fps. The team notes that this was all a test for using the engine to help with getting Uncharted 4: A Thief's End to run at 1080p and 60fps on the PlayStation 4.
Eurogamer managed to get in word with Naughty Dog's community strategist Arne Meyer, who talked a little bit about spec targets and console performance, saying...
"There's a lot of games out there that say they're 60, they feel 60 but if you push it you find some frame-rate dips. I think every game's going to do that, and it's going to happen to us too. It's not going to be something massive where you're going to tell the difference. I can't tell, but I'm not a frame-counter. Some people on NeoGAF can."When we came out and said we're trying to hit 60, we saw that there's a lot of debate between that, so why not cater to both sides of that," … "If you've really got a strong preference for that, why not provide that customization for you? Speaking of NeoGAF, there was a guy saying he gets more nauseous at 60fps than 30fps, so he's loving it. It's kind of an anomaly, and most people are like - why are you doing that? It's great that we're able to include it."
That's the first time I've heard of someone becoming nauseous from 60 frames per second... for a third-person shooter game... especially one as slowed down and tactically paced as The Last of Us. It's easy to see how someone might lose their lunch over playing a game like F-Zero GX (especially using the Oculus Rift) or getting tipsy from playing a game like Bayonetta 2 or Noby, Noby Boy, but a more grounded game like The Last of Us seems like an odd way to get motion sickness.
Even still, the team at Naughty Dog had a rough go of it during the early part of the PS3's lifespan due to the difficult architecture and having to suffer through attempts to get Uncharted looking and running right on Sony's third-generation console. Unlike last gen, Naughty Dog has taken steps to ease into the PS4's design architecture and ensure that their engine is up and running by having The Last of Us run at 1080p and 60fps. Imagine it as a development gauge of sorts to see how well their tech runs on the PS4.
Meyer went on to say that...
"A lot of it was because we could try something out on our PS4 engine," ... "How far can we do it? Can we do a 1080p, 60fps game? We always wanted to do that, but for the types of effects we wanted to put on screen 720p30 was just fine. Now with the push to go even further that's not fine enough. So we're trying to rise to meet that kind of challenge too."
Meyer also mentions that they would love to see the previous Uncharted games remastered for PlayStation 4, but the studio is unsure if they want to pursue it. Worldwide studios boss Shuhei Yoshida also wants to see the games remastered for the PlayStation 4. The real question is if it fits in with Naughty Dog's current schedule of getting Uncharted 4 finished in a timely matter and wrapping up whatever other projects they have in the pipeline to tackle some classic games ripe for remastering.
