The Last of Us Part 2 May Just Be Playable on the Steam Deck

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It still shocks me sometimes how I am able to play PlayStation’s massive games on the Steam Deck. The fact that I am able to sit down and play Spider-Man or Days Gone in the palm of my hands whenever I travel is astounding, and I’ll not be blown away by it. Not all of their games are great on the Deck, though, and unfortunately, we can’t get around that. However, with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, I have a little more optimism now.

Yesterday, Naughty Dog posted about the minimum specs for the game, which will be released on April 3rd, and I’m actually left with a little hope. The minimum specs ask for a CPU of either an Intel i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X, an NVIDIA GTX 1650, and 16GB of RAM for the lowest settings at 1280x720 resolution and 30 FPS.

While these requirements are a bit hefty, they are not unplayable. There are games that have had tougher requirements that worked decently, and knowing Nixxes is porting gives me a bit more confidence. We also have FSR 3 and 4 upscaling, which could help if it isn’t included in the minimum spec benchmarking, and the article specifically mentions handheld gaming devices, so it’s clear the team knows we will be trying to play this way.

It’s a little weird that XeSS wasn’t listed, as I have started to enjoy the upscaler more than FSR in certain games, but my biggest concern is going to be CPU and RAM. I have been seeing more bigger games bottlenecked by CPU, and while I think The Last of Us Part 2 will be okay based on the listed CPU, it still worries me. The last game (Part 1) was also a bit tough on Deck, but the new game has a less demanding CPU ask, and Nixxes being here helps a lot.

Naughty Dog also confirmed that there will be no mandatory PlayStation Account login, which I expected, but is still nice to see. There are bonuses for doing so that are quite nice, but I appreciate PlayStation for giving us the option.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered can be pre-purchased for $49.99 ahead of its April 3rd release date.

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