The Last of Us Part 1, a ground-up remake of Naughty Dog’s critically and commercially acclaimed video game, was officially unveiled during last night’s Summer Game Fest stream. (Well, it was leaked by Sony about an hour before, but let’s forget about that for Geoff Keighley’s sanity). Since then, a lot of the conversation online seems to be saying one thing: why?
It’s actually pretty obvious why. The answer is money. But more broadly, it’s the chance to hit a new audience. Not only is the series arriving properly on PS5 for the first time – The Last of Us Part 2 is playable, the PS4 version – but it’s launching ahead of the HBO TV series adaptation. It’s also coming to PC at a later date.
This means it will grab those people who are tentatively interested in the TV show – which is helmed by Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin and will probably be incredible – as well as PC die-hards and people who jumped from Xbox to PlayStation at the start of the generation. It makes business sense and will probably sell another 10 million copies. Maybe more.
