The Last of Us Uses Cut Scene Models in Gameplay, Has Improved Lighting

Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann has talked a bit more about the upcoming The Last of Us Remastered edition for the PS4, confirming that the title now uses the high-quality cut scene models from the PS3 version, while boasting improved lighting and more.

The Last of Us appeared last June for the PS3, delivering a great survival experience that combined a touching story of two survivors, Joel and Ellie, with intense gameplay, not to mention a good multiplayer experience.

Since then, developer Naughty Dog has released different DLC packs for the game's online mode, but also a new single-player campaign called Left Behind, which acted as a sort of prequel.

Now, the studio is busy adapting the game for the PS4 console, in the form of The Last of Us Remastered edition.

Game Director Neil Druckmann has talked with Edge about the different improvements in quality undergone by this new version of the game.

First up, he said that, in order to deliver a great experience on PS3, the team used two different character models, one high-quality set for cut scenes, and one lower set for the actual gameplay, so that the game didn't suffer in performance.

In the PS4 edition, the game will use only the high-quality cut scene models because the new console is more than capable of rendering them at all times.

"We don't build it with high assets in mind to then port it, but it did give us a leg up," Druckmann told the magazine, via CVG. "If we hadn't done that, we might not have made the call to bring it over to PS4."

Besides this key improvement, Naughty Dog sought to enhance various other portions of the game, such as the enemy models that looked "blurry up close," while overhauling the lighting system so that the visuals pop out a bit more.

Druckmann also mentioned that it was quite a challenge to go from the PS3 architecture onto the PS4, and some aspects of the game had to be rebuilt from scratch, like the cinematic sequences, which now run at a 1080p native resolution and a 60fps framerate.

"Our cinematics are now running at 1080p and 60fps, and that involved rendering them all from scratch. It's interesting that now [instead of a technical bottleneck], the bottleneck is 'Can we fit all this on the disc?'"

Druckmann didn't rule out special functions for the PS4 DualShock 4 touchpad, but he declined to say anything else about the upcoming re-release of the game.