The Last of Us Part II breaks Uncharted 4 sales record

By Jon Silman June 23, 2020

The numbers are out and not only is The Last of Us Part II is one of the most significant video game releases of the past few years, but it’s also the best selling PS4 launch title of all time in the U.K.

Physical copies of the game in the U.K. have outsold every title ever for the Playstation 4 console, and it broke the previous record for launch copies sold by another Naughty Dog game — Uncharted 4, which was released in 2016. According to sales charts reported by GI.biz, The Last of Us Part II beat the previous record by 1%.

Those numbers do not take digital downloads into account, so the total figure could be different. It also makes The Last of Us Part II the best selling game of the year in the U.K., beating out Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch by 40%.

The sales are indicative of the popularity of the franchise as a whole, and the first game in the series is widely considered a modern masterpiece. Its popularity doesn’t just exist in the video game world, either. There’s a Last of Us podcast and an HBO series in development from Johan Renck, who directed Chernobyl.

The new game is also much darker than the first, but fans are still eager to continue the story of protagonist Ellie, and Joel, her grizzled father figure in the story.

Digital Trends gave the game a 5-star review and named it an Editors’ Choice title.

“The Last of Us was lauded for its emotional narrative that left players reeling, and Naughty Dog’s sequel finds a way to expand on that. The Last of Us Part II is a gut punch in the best way,” the review notes.

The game has not been without controversy, and several spoilers were leaked before its release, involving various plot points and the ending. The Last of Us Part II has also faced review-bombing on the aggregation site Metacritic.

Many users spammed the site with negative reviews hours after its release, which dragged down its user score. The game has a 95 rating and is considered a “must play” on the reviewer side, but the negative reviews outweigh the positive ones by almost 10,000 on the user side.

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Topics

Computing

This might be why The Last of Us has terrible stuttering on PC

Joel looks at Ellie in The Last of Us Part 2.

The Last of Us on PC has launched in a dire state. Although I haven't experienced as many issues as some players are reporting, the consensus is clear: the game is buggy, poorly optimized, and underbaked. It's currently sitting with a Mostly Negative review status on Steam, which is typically reserved for the most broken games, like Battlefield 2042.

Consider yourself warned if you want to jump into Joel and Ellie's story on PC, especially if you just finished off the excellent HBO series. For players who already have the game, there's a particular issue you should be aware of that relates to Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), as well as demands on your system that go far beyond the recommended specs.
A possible source of stutter

Gaming

The Last of Us finale makes a subtle change from the game to set up season 2

Joel holds the surgeons at gunpoint in The Last of Us' finale.

HBO viewers were rocked Sunday night by the finale of The Last of Us, which brought the iconic ending of Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed game to life in live-action. It was an extremely faithful adaptation, with no huge deviations from the source material. However, a key change was made that will help the show more gracefully transition into its adaptation of The Last of Us Part II.
Note: Spoilers for The Last of Us TV show and The Last of Us Part II video game to follow.
At the climax of The Last of Us Season 1's final episode, we see Joel annihilate most of the Fireflies and doctors at the Salt Lake City hospital as they prepare to operate on Ellie to get a cure, which would have killed her in the process. It's a chilling sequence that hits the same dubious, morally horrifying notes as it did in the game, and little is changed.
We see Joel kill the surgeon about to operate on Ellie after he picks up a scalpel and says he won't let Joel take her. Joel shoots him in cold blood, but does not kill the nurses assisting him. As he walks out of the room with Ellie, a shot lingers on the face of the now-deceased surgeon, punctuating Joel's massacre.

That may sound like a small cinematic altercation, but that lingering shot is very meaningful to those of us that played The Last of Us Part II. In the original game, we don't think much about Joel's victim; he's just some nameless doctor. In Part II, however, we meet that doctor's daughter, Abby, who's on a quest for revenge. What's a thoughtless action for Joel becomes deeply personal for someone he's never met.
By adding in that extra shot, the finale more confidently sets that up. Even if casual viewers don't know it yet, the groundwork is being laid for something that will be very important in the next season and makes it clear that the show knows where it's going.
The finale further teases what's to come with a smart bit of casting. Eagle-eyed fans may notice that one of the nurses during the scene is played by Laura Bailey, who portrays Abby in The Last of Us Part II. It's likely just the show paying tribute to the game's cast (as it did in episode 8 with Troy Baker, who voiced Joel in the video games), but it's also another way to tease what's to come in the next season. Abby is coming for Joel. Prepare your golf balls.
Of course, when Naughty Dog released The Last of Us in 2013, it didn't yet know that this doctor would play such a pivotal part in the sequel's story, so not as much focus was put on him in the game. The developers retroactively tried to correct this with a retelling of the sequence from Abby's perspective in The Last of Us Part II and updated models in the game's remake.
Showrunners Craig Maizin and Neil Druckmann have the benefit of knowing this moment's importance from the start and not being locked to Joel's third-person perspective. They can now take the time to linger with a shot like this, emphasizing what Joel has done and laying the groundwork for what comes next. It's a short and subtle shot that slightly deviates from the original game, but it's also something that could only be done in this TV show and will certainly be hugely important for the show as we head into season 2.
The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max.

Entertainment

Now that The Last of Us is over, you should watch these TV shows and movies

Pedro Pascal stands in front of Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us.

It had to end sometime. Season 1 and episode 9 of The Last of Us just finished, and a lot of people are probably bummed they can't get more postapocalyptic drama. Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the show chronicles a lonely man who guides a traumatized teenage girl across an unrecognizable America in the hopes of finding a cure for a fungal virus that has turned most of the world's population into flesh-eating zombies.

With an impressive 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and a steadily increasing viewership week after week, The Last of Us has already become the greatest video game adaptation ever made and now ranks among some of HBO's biggest shows. In case anyone is anxious to see more of the series, here are some shows/films similar to The Last of Us that will make the wait for season 2 easier.
A Quiet Place