‘The Final of Us Half I’ for PC is a buggy mess

I like all issues The Final of Us, so it pains me to report that the PC port of The Final of Us Half I, which launched yesterday, is a buggy mess. Hundreds of evaluations on Steam are categorized as “largely damaging” and are full of mentions of frequent crashes and poor {hardware} utilization. In the meantime, Steam Deck customers are reporting that it takes greater than an hour for the sport to compile shaders on its preliminary launch — and even as soon as that is performed, efficiency is a matter.

I haven’t got a robust gaming PC, however I do have a Steam Deck and may verify these points. As soon as I bought the sport put in and waited round 90 minutes for the shaders to compile, I began taking part in the standalone DLC Left Behind, and the sport crashed through the opening cinematics. As soon as I began taking part in the sport, I noticed it was utilizing 102 % of the Steam Deck’s VRAM. Dropping all graphics settings to low bought me beneath one hundred pc, so crashes will most likely be much less frequent going ahead. I solely performed for a couple of minutes, so I can not say how issues work as soon as you are taking on Contaminated, however I will not get my hopes up. 

It is also price nothing that Sony did not present evaluations with a demo code for the sport till launch day, one thing that always means the sport is both being labored on proper up till the final minute or the expertise is not superb (or each). This made a bit nervous about how The Final of Us Half I would run, and it looks like my fears had been well-founded.

The Last of Us Part I Steam Deck settings

Photograph by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Developer Naughty Canine did not waste any time addressing the issues, tweeting out final evening that they are “actively investigating a number of points” that gamers have reported. The corporate additionally has a “known issues” page running, which acknowledges the shader loading difficulty in addition to a possible reminiscence leak, older graphics drivers resulting in instability, and the sport being unable in addition regardless of methods that meet the minimal necessities.

Quite a few high-profile PlayStation video games from Sony’s first-party studios have been ported to PC, together with 2017’s Horizon Zero Daybreak and 2018’s God of Struggle, in addition to Naughty Canine’s personal Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves assortment (which incorporates remastered variations Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Misplaced Legacy). Each Horizon and the Uncharted assortment had fairly critical points at launch, as effectively. Since then, updates have made the video games work significantly better, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a disappointing pattern. 

Even after delaying the sport a few month from its unique March third date, issues had been clearly not able to go. Sony seemingly needed to capitalize on the recognition of the HBO sequence, which wrapped its first season earlier this month, however a delayed launch might be higher than a launch that nobody can play. As of now, Naughty Canine hasn’t launched an replace for The Final of Us Half I, however we’ll be holding a watch out for any fixes. I have been dreaming of getting this sport on-the-go because it was introduced, so my fingers are crossed Naughty Canine could make it work on the Steam Deck — to not point out for the many individuals who need to play it on their highly effective gaming PCs.