Who needs a PS5? The Last of Us on PS4 gets ridiculous load time patch

News by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief

Published on Oct. 25, 2020

Naughty Dog has pushed out an update for The Last of Us Remastered that greatly improves the loading times in the game on PlayStation 4.

The Last of Us Remastered developer Naughty Dog has rolled out another impressive patch for the iconic survival game – and its standalone expansion, The Last of Us: Left Behind – which has made some pretty impressive improvements to the title's loading times.

And who would notice the improvements more than a dedicated TLOU speedrunner? Anthony Calabrese, a big part of the speedrunning community for the PlayStation 4 game, noted that the patch all but eliminates loading times in the title with the 1.11 update.

Patch 1.11 of TLOU made it so loading screens are basically non-existent on PS4. This is for both ssd and hdd. Sections load in asap and I can save almost 18 seconds in the David fight. Everyone go and check. Was this the patch's intention? @Naughty_Dog @BadData_ @arnemeyer
— Anthony Calabrese (@AnthonyCaliber) October 24, 2020

Thanks to a video from ElAnalistaDeBits (embedded below) we can see just how much of an improvement the developer has made to the game via these new updates: it's a remarkable difference.

As per the video, it takes roughly 14 seconds to load a new game with patch 1.11 installed, compared to 1 minute 30 seconds on the previous version of the game.

Loading a save, meanwhile, takes around 14 seconds, compared to over 2 minutes before the installation.

One of the main selling points of the PlayStation 5 is its rapid loading times, but if developers can ready their titles like this on the current generation of hardware, it may take away the sting for players that have been unable to secure a pre-order of a PS5 or are unable to afford the console right now.

Here's hoping we see this kind of improvement land on other titles soon, too.

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