With Naughty Dog hitting 1080p/60fps for The Last of Us Remastered (thereâs also an option to lock it at 30fps), GameSpot asked Naughty Dog Lead Programmer Jason Gregory if 60fps would become the new standard in games:
We hope so. It used to just be that first-person shooters were 60 by default, but a lot of other games didnât feel the need for it. I think weâre showing that it does make a difference even in a non-FPS type game. And one question thatâs been fielded on Twitter as a follow-up to the 60 Hz [ed. note: Naughty Dog uses Hz when talking about frames-per-second], is whether or not weâre always at 1080p. Some games have been doing the whole adaptive resolution where they change the resolution based on whatâs going on. We are always at 1080p.
Admitting how there was an internal debate âover the artistic-ness of going [30fps] or [60fps],â Gregory revealed that all debates ended when people finally saw it running at 60fps. Because of this, âgoing back and playing the 30 Hz version feels, to quote some people in the office, âbroken.'â
After Gregory talked about all the technical upgrades with The Last of Us Remastered and how multiplayer is separate on PS3 and PS4 (meaning no cross-play), Lead Designer Ricky Cambier said, âAt the end of the day, we were able to get everything we wanted onto the disc, and didnât really have to compromise anything. And thatâs including the full Left Behind DLC, so it was really a challenge, but we figured out how to get it all in there.â
With The Last of Us Remastered representing Naughty Dogâs first PS4 release, Gregory mentioned how it was like âtaking a crash course in PS4,â and because of it, âwe feel like weâve got a very complete engine, and something thatâs going to provide a great foundation for moving forward from Uncharted.â
Unfortunately, because theyâve been so focused on The Last of Us Remastered, Naughty Dog hasnât âreally had any time to experiment and play around with Project Morpheus at this point.â However, Gregory adds that Morpheus looks really promising, and âwe hope to be able to experiment with it later.â
Finally, when asked why people who played The Last of Us on PS3 should buy it again on PS4, Gregory said, âIn my view, this is really the way The Last of Us should be played. When you look at it on PS4, on PS3 we were envisioning something that couldnât quite be achieved. It was very well achieved on PS3, but not quite. And on PS4 it feels like the game reaches its full potential.â