The Last of Us Part 1 PC port has huge technical issues

Developers drop the ball after HBO show hyped players for the game

The PC release of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 1, the 2013 hit’s recent remake, has been hugely disappointing for fans. Players are faced with massive technical problems from epic load times through crashes to persistent freezes and visual glitches.

Users on Steam and Reddit report that they had to wait for up to three hours for the game to load its shaders. That presents players on Steam with a particularly frustrating issue, as you can only refund games you’ve played for under two hours. If you’re stuck on the loading screen for more time than that, you’ve missed your chance to get a refund.

There have been reports about constant crashes from the main menu as well, adding another hurdle preventing players from even getting into the adventure. Once people make it past those barriers, they are greeted with a terribly optimized game experience full of persistent stutters, freezes, and visual glitches.

Of the current 5,000 Steam reviews, around 4,000 are negative, making this Sony’s worst rated PC port by far. Recent ports like God of War and Spider-Man have been received very well, so this one seems like a rare miss. This is all the much worse because the success of HBO’s TV show based on The Last of Us fanned the hype for this release, getting people to purchase it.

These technical problems have been hitting people completely out of the blue as Sony has not provided any critics with review codes ahead of release, hiding the issues from discovery.

Naughty Dog has posted a statement on Twitter, saying it’s investigating the problems.

The Last of Us Part I PC players: we've heard your concerns, and our team is actively investigating multiple issues you've reported.

We will continue to update you, but our team is prioritizing updates and will address issues in upcoming patches.

— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) March 28, 2023

However, it looks like there won’t be a quick solution, as the company said that the team is focused on updates “and will address issues in upcoming patches.”

Resident Evil 4 Remake, which launched only a few days ago and is another ported remake of a classic game, nailed every aspect of the jump to PC, making The Last of Us Part 1’s port appear even worse.