The Last Of Us Part 1 Review: 7 Ups & 2 Downs

2. Best-In-Class Character Models & Facial Animation

The real graphical step up however comes from the new facial animations and overhauled character models.

Now, The Last of Us was no slouch when it came to emotive characters, but The Last of Us Part 1 is next level. Side characters like Tess, Marlene and Henry benefit the most from the new tech, with subtleties in their actors’ performances coming through in a way they simply couldn’t in the original. This was an aspect that just kept blowing me away the more I played; these are characters that were already iconic, bolstered by performances that were near-perfect, and somehow they’re elevated to an even higher level here. It’s hard to explain, but it just feels like there’s life behind the eyes of these 3D digital characters now.

Joel and Ellie, of course, benefit from these improvements too. Ellie in particular looks and emotes more like an actual human teenager this time around, and this particularly shines, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the Winter chapter.

Some of the “realistic” details that've been added might seem minor in isolation (there'll no doubt be jokes doing the rounds claiming all the developers have done is added spit to the characters' mouths when they’re shouting) but cumulatively they do make for more lifelike scenes.