A developer at Naughty Dog has seemingly confirmed that a remastered edition of The Last of Us Part II is in the works just three years after the game’s initial release.
Fans noticed an entry on Naughty Dog lead outsource artist Mark Pajarillo’s LinkedIn page which referenced a remaster of the Last of Us sequel. According to the initial entry, Pajarillo was “[r]esponsible for overseeing the production of all outsourced environment art assets, weapons and interactive props for The Last of Us: Part One and The Last of Us 2: Remastered.” While mention of The Last of us Part II Remastered no longer appears on the page, screenshots of the original entry remain online.
This comes just months after The Last of Us composer Gustavo Santaolalla hinted at an upgraded version of Part II. In a July interview with TCMFGames (translated by the fan account Naughty Dog Info on X), Santaolalla claimed that in “new editions” of the game, players would be able to interact with his in-game model and ask him to play certain tracks from the series. At this time, Naughty Dog has not confirmed development of The Last of Us Part II Remastered. That said, such a game would almost certainly be a PlayStation 5 release.
The Last of Us series is no stranger to remasters
Naughty Dog’s acclaimed post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us originally released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in 2013 — rather late in the console’s lifespan. As such, a remastered edition — simply titled The Last of Us Remastered — released for the PlayStation 4 in 2014.
A sequel, The Last of Us Part II, released exclusively for the PS4 in 2020. A mere two years later, Naughty Dog again revisited the original 2013 game, this time remaking it from the ground up and re-christening it The Last of Us Part I. Part I released exclusively for the PS5 in 2022, with a PC release following suit in 2023. In other words, the developer remastering Part II so soon would hardly be unprecedented, especially now that the PS5 is Sony‘s flagship console.
The Last of Us Part II is currently available exclusively on PS4.