Popular Last of Us Speedrunner Voices Complaints with Remake

Few people are likely to be as keenly familiar with The Last of Us franchise as streamer and YouTuber Anthony Caliber. For years, Caliber worked to solidify his world-record-setting speedrun of The Last of Us, a game originally released by Naughty Dog for PlayStation 3 in 2013.

Naturally, Caliber broadened his speedrunning workload in 2020 upon the release of the widely divisive The Last of Us Part II. It’s no surprise that the streamer would be among the first to dive into the PlayStation 5 remake of the 2013 original, retrospectively titled The Last of Us Part I.

In less than three months following the September release of the remake, Caliber uploaded a nearly hour-long video discussing and showcasing his frustrations with the game. While Caliber maintains his composure, his sentiment is clear: the accumulation of these small changes and oversights actively makes the remake less enjoyable to repeatedly play than the original game.

So, how big are these bugs, anyway? To help paint a fuller picture of what all the video covers, we’re going to break it down into three major groups: melee combat, enemy reactions, and gunplay.

Melee Combat

The ammo is low and your back is against the wall: what do you do now? Well, if you were thinking of relying on melee combat to pull you back from the brink, you may want to think again.

Throughout his video, Caliber presents viewers with example after example of some seriously frustrating glitches and game mechanics that weren’t present in the original game.

First, it’s important to note that there are several ways that players can engage in melee combat. For example, Joel’s attacks deal more damage and feature slightly different animations when performed while sprinting than they do while moving regularly or standing still.

According to Caliber’s footage, if the player attempts to initiate a melee attack while sprinting and they’re within a certain range of an enemy, Joel seemingly clips through the target. In some cases, Joel may successfully hit the target from behind, but sometimes the hit may not land at all.

Given that enemies such as Clickers can kill the player in a single hit, this glitch can certainly ruin your speedrun or casual experience.

While a bug such as this can be annoying, it only gets worse if the player is holding the shotgun.

In the video, Caliber attempts to transition into a melee weapon swing while holding the shotgun, but the game has other ideas. The gun is instantly replaced with the melee weapon, but Joel does not swing, and the Clicker closes in for the kill.

The streamer goes on to show off both of the aforementioned glitches in a larger combat scenario, and the bugs definitely steal the spotlight.

Lastly, Caliber explains a core melee attack combo that seemingly has not carried over from the original game. In both the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game, should the player knock an enemy to the ground with a sprinting melee weapon attack, the next regular attack will feature a special kill animation.

However, as Caliber shows, the remake does not have such a feature. In fact, it appears that the very same follow-up attack that once killed one’s opponent now causes them to begin standing back up. That is, of course, if they don’t go from cowering on the ground to completely upright in a single jarring frame.

Not only do these bugs and glitches detract from the immersion and enjoyment of playing the game, but it also very plainly looks bad. Core mechanics such as these should not be worse in a remake of a game that released two console generations and nine years ago.

Enemy Reactions

Throughout all visual media, a tried-and-true method for conveying the power of a punch has been to show the reaction of the person receiving said punch. When the receiver doesn’t react, the implication is clear: the entity stuck is much stronger than the entity striking.

Joel has what one may call “crazy old man strength.” The kind of not-to-be-messed-with physical prowess your grandfather or great-grandfather may have possessed as they showed off how they could still bend a silver dollar between their thumb and forefinger in their mid-80s.

Whether it be his bare knuckles, the stock of his firearm, or a baseball bat, just about every enemy in The Last of Us should be seeing stars for a few seconds after Joel pops off on them.

In the original game, this was certainly the case. Even Joel’s regular unarmed attacks would see enemies take a minimum of two to four seconds before they were able to retaliate. As Caliber explains, this is a perfect amount of time for the player to decide to run away and regroup, shift focus toward other enemies, or otherwise engage in the encounter in varied ways.

Currently, the remake is torn between two possible outcomes: the enemy does not react to being hit at all or they recover and counterattack the player in less than a second.

Caliber demonstrates these core issues in a number of scenarios, such as:

• A runner who does not react to the player hitting it with the stock of the shotgun immediately initiates a grapple.

• A human enemy that consistently recovers so quickly that the player does not have time to sprint away before being hit by them.

• An infected recovers from a sprinting punch and strikes the player before they can perform a follow-up attack, resulting in a death.

When speculating on the purpose of these seemingly broken mechanics, Caliber disheartenedly states “I don’t think that’s something that they’re gonna patch or fix, I think that’s what they wanted.”

The enemy reaction times and behaviors definitely seem more akin to those found in The Last of Us Part II; however, without the ability to dodge attacks, the remake definitely appears to lack balance.

Another integrated mechanic from Part II that Caliber “always hated” is that enemies will immediately shoot you if you peek from cover while they are aiming at you. “You’re taking the gun out of your gun game,” Caliber says.

For reference, the streamer explains that in the original game, enemies would exclusively miss their first shot in such a scenario, giving the player precious seconds to line up their own shot.

Caliber adds that each of these glitches or mechanics actively “makes playing and running this game just not enjoyable.”

Gunplay

The last major element of The Last of Us Part I that seemingly underperforms compared to the original release is the firearm mechanics.

Previously, we’ve discussed how The Last of Us Part II delivers an underwhelming experience when it comes to its guns, and it seems like even more issues have arisen in the remake.

First, Caliber discusses yet another set of issues with the shotgun. He aims the weapon and shows that when the gun is supposed to be ready to fire, the reticle on the screen appears white. Once the player fires and as the character chambers another shell, the reticle is gray.

However, upon the indicator turning white again, the player is unable to immediately fire. It would seem that there is an input delay that prohibits players from firing the gun too soon after completing the pumping animation.

This issue is compounded by another feature present in the game that may also apply to Joel and Ellie’s rifles.

When the player fires the shotgun or the rifle, the character will immediately go to chamber another shell or cartridge, respectively. However, should the player change weapons or initiate a melee attack before this animation completes, the character must perform the animation again upon reequipping the weapon.

This feature, despite being a more accurate depiction of how firearms work in the real world, severely discourages combining gunplay with other combat strategies.

Caliber goes on to exemplify a core issue present when reloading certain weapons. Specifically at fault are the revolver, rifle, and shotgun, seeing as they require the character to load ammunition one unit at a time.

Should the player expend all the ammunition loaded in the weapon, there is a strong chance that when they go to reload, the character will only load one shot, then stop. This requires the player to initiate the reload again.

Especially with the backdrop of a ravaged post-apocalyptic landscape, it’s plain to see how time wasted on reloading can be directly proportionate to damage taken in combat.

Finally, Caliber goes into detail showing his viewers one of the worst bugs in The Last of Us remake. For this major issue to occur, all the player has to do is equip the bow and aim. Doing so will exacerbate the weapon sway while aiming any other gun until the player reaches a cutscene or restarts from their last checkpoint.

The issue can become exponentially worse should the player draw the bow for extended periods of time, which results in Joel looking quite drunk and delirious when aiming other weapons. Of course, while this glitch may be amusing to witness, it’s undoubtedly frustrating to encounter.

Conclusion

While Caliber states at the end of his video that he still views The Last of Us Part I as the better option for casual or first-time players, the discouragement in his voice is clear. The streamer goes on to say, “Overall, I think I’d rather deal with the jank of the original than some of the things I showed off in this game.”

Long-time fans of the original The Last of Us game who have yet to purchase the remake may want to continue waiting to do so until Naughty Dog has corrected some of these issues or the price drops considerably from its $70 starting point.

Unfortunately, games launching in less-than-optimal states have become the norm in recent years, and it seems that Naughty Dog is no longer an exception to that trend. While there was clearly a lot of effort put into rebuilding the look of The Last of Us, the actual gameplay did not receive the same amount of careful detailing.

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