Tuesday 7th of July 2026

The Last of Us Remake: From a PS3 to 8GB of VRAM. Is it worth it?

It's certainly not for everyone.

I finally decided to buy the remake of "The Last of Us." People had spoken very highly of it, and I hadn't played the original, so I decided to give it a shot. I couldn't stand the endless shader compilation time—total garbage, feels like a bad port. The game itself is worth it. Visually stunning, character models are mind-blowing…

Comparing it to the PS3 version, which I was able to try, it definitely wins big in the visual department. But the story remains kind of a mashup between The Walking Dead, Omega Man, and probably the movie version of I Am Legend where we extract blood from someone to save the world.

It doesn't shine for being original in terms of plot. In fact, it ends up being a soap opera and an interesting bore after about 3 hours of gameplay.

I left it there. Literally couldn't take it anymore. You could say that Sony's epic dramas—from God of War Norse saga, through Horizon, all the way to games like Days Gone—aren't really my thing. I guess I'm a guy who prefers action or more fluid entertainment? I honestly couldn't explain it.

In this case, I don't blame the game for anything. I saw so much about it everywhere, with top-tier comments calling it a masterpiece, that I decided to check it out. Obviously, it's not for me. It's certainly a great visual work, but it doesn't justify such a HIGH resource consumption on PC. I've seen games with better graphics consume fewer resources. A game that eats that much VRAM running at 1080p is a carriage with a broken wheel at 1440p or 4K without a high-end GPU.

My current plan is to buy an RTX 5070 Ti, and I think my wallet is going to bleed heavily since in Argentina they cost roughly double what they do in the US or Europe. That, plus absurd taxes, makes getting to 16GB of VRAM require pulling out the credit card and accepting the pain upfront. But in my case, video games relieve my stress and focus me more than they distract me, so I consider it a justified expense.

Back to the game, all of the above crossed my mind when I saw that my 12GB of VRAM barely cuts it anymore for running these types of games at high resolutions.

My advice for anyone wanting to try this game, or other titles that already use a brutal amount of resources: Don't get frustrated. In many cases, they're just really bad ports, and that's why the consumption is brutal. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the worst example of that, and I'm going to avoid mentioning the developer because farming in the apocalypse isn't really my thing either.

The Last of Us has nuances and an emotional depth that Hideo Kojima could only dream of with games like Death Stranding. It truly is a great game, with depth beyond the mashup. But the problem is that, to a greater or lesser extent, it becomes partially predictable simply because it is, in fact, what I already said: a soap opera. That's why there are patterns within the genre itself that aren't going anywhere and give away a lot.

I'm someone who has spent more time playing Far Cry than games of this ilk. That doesn't make me the best analyst for these pieces.

I can highlight how well done the characters are and the overall acting. In that regard, it's not "just any game"—you can tell from a mile away that it's a AAA title brought to its highest expression with a remake that actually IS a remake and not some kind of enhanced version like I've seen many times. Capcom, for example, doesn't disappoint with Resident Evil in any aspect, but that doesn't change the fact that the "remake" of the first entry is a game that came out on GameCube 20 years ago…

The Last of Us has something few games have: an unmatched cinematic tone. Graphics from another league, and ultimately, the cadence of a mixed-genre series for storytelling.

In my case, all of that is overshadowed by the slow pacing. The gameplay overall is good. We're not talking about a mess. It's very playable and can adapt to any gamer—including those of us who just shoot things. But again, there's a checklist to complete, and the first point is "Do you like dramas?" If the answer is no, you might have the same experience as me, ending up with a certain degree of admiration—the intro is amazing—and then falling into a certain flat level of boredom due to the type of narrative development.

Verdict: A damn great game, but not made for everyone. At some point, I'll muster up the patience and finish it. Let it be said: It is worth it.