I had actually gotten this game as a gift for The Gamer’s Tavern 2024 Secret Santa but never actually got around to playing it, even though it was installed on my Steam Deck from the day that I actually got the device. That being said, with the generosity I’d experienced with the 2025 Secret Santa round, I wanted to make sure I focused on gifts first before playing any other game. So I had to go a little back in time to get caught up.
I’d previously seen the show so I had a pretty good understanding of what I was getting myself into. While watching the show did spoil some of the key events that would happen throughout the game, it didn’t take away from the actual gameplay itself. I still shouted several obscenities in my gaming lair when clickers would pop up unexpectedly and still felt the raw emotions from the heartbreaking scene where, spoiler alert, Sarah, Joel’s daughter, ends up dying. As a parent, that kind of stuff still hits me hard because I can immediately put myself in that person’s shoes on how I would feel in that situation.
I had a hard time actually playing this on the Steam Deck, not because of anything with the game, but because I own an 8bitdo Ultimate Nintendo Switch controller and, for whatever reason, the game kept defaulting back to using the Nintendo layout even when I would override it. So swapped it over to my Linux desktop and played with a keyboard and mouse, yay Steam cloud saves! I did end up switching back to the deck for a bit when I picked up a new Gamesir Tarantula Pro controller, but I experienced several game crashes so I went back to the PC. Unfortunately, these game crashes still took place there as well so that turned into some frustrating moments.
All that aside, I really enjoyed getting to play the game as Joel, stealthily making my way through various buildings, tunnels, water pipes, and other post apocalyptic scenarios, keeping an ear out for any movement or talking that might alert me to others presence. I played a significant amount of the game before firing my first shot and, if I recall correctly, it was a forced scenario. I also played a significant amount of the game crouched and moving slowly which is probably what added a bit to my playtime. But man, I wasn’t blindly running into a group of clickers no matter how many times the game kept putting my gun away because nothing was going on. There were definitely moments where I could physically feel my body react to the situation, whether that being tensing up, my heart rate climbing, or just “locking in” by shifting forward to make sure I didn’t miss a thing. It’s not all that often that a game really drives that sort of connection with me so I was pleasantly surprised.
I played the first part of the game on the default settings and I kept being shocked at how awful looking it was. When I turned the settings up to a paltry medium, I was getting a lot of really weird artifacts and tearing happening. So I finally went and found a good video that explained the best settings for the deck (even though I was playing on my PC, it’s about the same power) and what a world of a difference that made. That’s probably my biggest regret in letting the game choose what was “best” for my system and not tweaking it more. The game has some beautiful scenery and making these adjustments really brought out that beauty in a way that I was missing.
I finally rolled the credits and played the Left Behind extra scenario which dove into some of the background for Ellie and how her personality came about. I had seen all of this through the show so I was kind of surprised when I didn’t encounter any of that during the main story. I think it’s fine as a DLC and extra type of event, but it could have potentially had more power in the story if it were woven in instead. Either way, I highly recommend playing through that mode as well as it does provide some nice depth of character.
The highlight of The Last of Us, Part 1 for me was of course getting to pet Buckley. If you have animals in the game, and you don’t allow the player to pet them or otherwise interact with them, you’re missing out. I’m looking forward to playing part 2 sometime in the future, but first, I have a plethora of other games I need to get through!