The widely-rumored PS5 remake of The Last of Us could release as soon as “this holiday”, according to a recent report.
The report comes by way of GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb as part of the the May 18 episode of the Kind of Funny Gamescast. “I keep hearing that’s coming out this year [...] The Last of Us remake this holiday, yes,” Grubb said during the episode. “I’m pretty confident about that too [...] I think it probably is one of their big holiday games this year.”
In response to the idea that this would be a speedy release for Naughty Dog, Grubb pointed out that “The Last of Us Part 2 came out a while ago” adding, “it’s a pretty efficient, well-oiled machine over at Naughty Dog and they wouldn’t have to do too much ‘cause that’s the whole point, is that this is a game that they could update really quickly.”
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This isn’t the first we’ve heard reports of a potential latter half of 2022 release date for a PS5 remake of The Last of Us. It was back in January of this year that writer and industry insider, Tom Henderson, reported he had heard from multiple sources that the remake is “nearly finished”; a claim that was backed up by VGC, which said it had heard similar information from its own sources.
Even before that, a 2021 report from Bloomberg claimed that a PS5 remake of The Last of Us was in the works. In that report, it was said that Sony's Visual Arts studio had initially been working on the remake before Naughty Dog took over the project. That was quite a while ago now, though no potential release date was mentioned at that time.
Analysis: Still waiting on something official
There have been plenty of credible reports around the idea of a PS5 remake of The Last of Us but we still haven't heard anything official from PlayStation or Naughty Dog. A remake does, however, make sense.
Naughty Dog’s co-president Neil Druckmann said earlier this year that the studio has “multiple game projects” underway that he is “dying to share”, so it’s possible that a PS5 remake of The Last of Us is one of them. The game originally released on PS3 all the way back in 2013 before it was remastered for PS4 the following year. Would a jump onto PS5 be all that surprising? It’s an approach that seems to be working for Grand Theft Auto 5.
Aside from this, there’s currently a Last of Us TV show in the pipeline for HBO, which is currently expected to release sometime next year. It’s possible that the game and the TV show could benefit one another, with Grubb addressing this later in the episode:
"As long as that thing is relatively fresh and there on shelves,” he explains, “it should see a boost when it comes out. And then when the show comes out, another boost. That is their expectation."
As it is, the PS5 remake of The Last of Us is still just part of the rumor mill, with no official confirmations from Sony or Naughty Dog to speak of. That said, with Summer Game Fest approaching, we are expecting some exciting announcements from across the games industry over the next month. Could this be one of them?
Something we do, at least, know that Naughty Dog is working on, however, is a standalone multiplayer release for the series. Naughty Dog revealed it would sit separately to The Last of Us 2 back in 2019, explaining that “the vision of the team grew beyond an additional mode.” In September 2021, the studio provided an update, confirming that the project was still in development and that it was in “full swing of hiring for MP-related positions.” As yet, it doesn’t have a release date.
