Steam Deck Joel avenged: The Last of Us Part II Remastered nails handheld play

Performance, settings, and artillery beingness tested

I should person been much circumstantial erstwhile I said I didn’t privation developers to marque chiseled Steam Deck 'versions' of their games: portion locking settings, console-style, isn’t an perfect solution to ensuring susceptible show connected underpowered handhelds, offering the option of afloat Deck optimisation is precise overmuch welcome. That’s precisely what The Last of Us Part II Remastered does, which goes a agelong mode successful explaining wherefore it’s a acold amended crippled for portable PCs than TLOU Part I was astatine launch. I’d inactive spot the bottomless blackness of those bugged-out Joel eyebrows successful my nightmares, had the fearfulness not rendered slumber impossible.

Point being, the sequel – a associated effort by PC porting specialists Nixxes and Iron Galaxy Studios, alongside archetypal PlayStation devs Naughty Dog – is astir arsenic assured and broad a Steam Deck crippled arsenic you’re apt to get from the AAA crowd. It has an added prime preset named aft the instrumentality itself, Cyberpunk 2077-style, portion besides granting entree to each the idiosyncratic settings you’d get connected desktop, and it adjacent goes to the occupation of including Deck-specific fastener glyphs connected the HUD. As in, not conscionable A, B, X, and Y symbols similar you’d get from immoderate Xbox gamepad, but icons showing an existent Steam Deck. Part I’s method troubles were yet fixed, but it ne'er went that far.

Out-of-the-box show is bully here, too. The Steam Deck preset, which involves a substance of Very Low, Low, and Medium ocular settings, volition easy pump retired 30-45fps with the assistance of Quality-level FSR 3.1. Some adroit scaling besides makes definite that substance oregon prompts stay wide and readable connected the Deck’s 800p screen. That each being said, with immoderate customized tweaks you tin really get akin framerates portion keeping astir idiosyncratic settings connected Very High – much connected that below.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Part II Remastered besides marks what is hopefully a imperishable extremity to Sony’s caller experimentation successful demanding a PSN login for their PC ports. For the Steam Deck, whose Linux-based OS doesn’t play bully with PSN successful the slightest, this has varied from irritating to ruinous, but the argumentation has been rolled backmost to the constituent wherever syncing a PSN relationship is simply an enactment successful the game’s main menu. Go without, and each you’re missing retired connected is simply a bonus Ellie costume based connected Naughty Dog’s upcoming abstraction escapade Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. No mistake screens, nary blocked-off modes. Nature is healing.

Once you’re in-game, everything controls smoothly – perchance much truthful than connected a rodent and keyboard, if I’m honorable – and determination aren’t immoderate further bugs oregon hitches that Part II Remastered doesn’t besides grounds connected almighty Windows rigs. The lone existent interest is instal size: the 150GB SSD request instantly rules retired the 64GB Steam Deck exemplary for onboard storage, and portion thing breaks erstwhile playing disconnected a microSD card, load times are astir doubled compared to the Deck's SSD. Battery beingness isn’t large either, sucking an archetypal LCD Deck adust successful 1h 22m, though that’s besides good wrong expectations for a hi-fidelity 3D game. A Steam Deck OLED should past for implicit 2 hours, and from what I’ve played, besides has a insignificant vantage successful that its higher-contrast show makes it a tad easier to spot wherever you’re going portion poking astir Part II Remastered’s dark, dank, Mushroom Man-infested interiors.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

The Last of Us Part II Remastered Steam Deck settings guide

Conveniently – for maine – the customized settings I worked retired for moving The Last of Us Part II Remastered connected a deskbound PC are an effectual usher to balancing show visuals connected the Steam Deck. Yes, it means ignoring the Steam Deck preset that the larboard thoughtfully included, but yet that makes a batch of prime cuts that aren’t truly necessary. That bulk of settings don’t, successful fact, assistance oregon wounded framerates astatine all, truthful with conscionable a fewer deeper cuts to the level of item and texture prime settings, you tin get the aforesaid 30-45fps that you would from the purpose-built preset.

To beryllium specific, effort whacking these in:

• Upscale method: FSR 3.1.0
• Upscale quality: Quality
• Dynamic solution scaling: Off
• Level of detail: Low
• Texture quality: Low
• Image based lighting: Off
• Screen abstraction sub-surface scattering: Cinematics only
• Motion blur quality: Off
• Everything else: Very High preset equivalent

I thin to crook disconnected dynamic solution options arsenic a substance of people anyway, but it’s particularly important here, arsenic leaving it connected with the 30fps people volition really trim show wherever you could beryllium enjoying (a tangibly smoother) 40fps oregon more. That’s due to the fact that it switches from upscaling to autochthonal 800p erstwhile the crippled is moving supra that 30fps target, adjacent though Quality FSR looks adjacent capable to the existent thing. Unless you’re a stickler for maintaining a wholly accordant framerate, then, I’d suggest disabling dynamic rez and helping yourself to the other frames.

It seems worthy reiterating, too, that these settings support dozens of the disposable options astatine Very High, truthful successful places it volition look arsenic bully oregon amended than the PS5 mentation of the remaster than launched successful 2024. On a Steam Deck! It’s scarcely believable that this crippled adjacent comes from the aforesaid bid that, conscionable a mates of years ago, arrived connected handheld PCs creaking with duff show and adorning its protagonist with harrowing look fuzz.