The Last of Us Remastered has received a brand new update that was supposedly related to PS5 support. However, it might have reduced load times on PS4.
The update was released yesterday and the patch notes merely mentioned that it was for bug fixes. This follows a pattern of old and new games getting an update ahead of the launch of the PS5.
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As the update was released, Anthony Calabrese, who is speedrunning The Last of Us and other Naughty Dog games, revealed that this update has reportedly reduced the load times on the PS4. He also streamed Left Behind on his Twitch channel and the load times were roughly 8 to 9 seconds for a new game from the main menu.
We decided to test this out on our own by looking at the original unpatched version of The Last of Us Remastered and comparing it to the newly patched version. We performed this test on an external hard disk running on a PS4 Pro so if we consider SSD, it should be even faster, especially on the PS5.
The Last of Us Remastered comes with both the original game and Left Alone, which is a standalone DLC expansion starring Ellie. The load times for both of them are extremely fast now, even if we start the PS4 from a cold boot.
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In the case of an old version of The Last of Us Remastered, we counted roughly ~44 seconds for the initial load when starting a new game. After patching to the latest version, the initial load was reduced to ~18 seconds. If we continue from a previous save for the prologue, the load time was ~10 seconds.
Naughty Dog has definitely reduced the load times for The Last of Us Remastered. Whether they did it in preparation for the PS5, or before in a previous update, this remains to be seen. The good news is that the load times are a lot shorter now so even if you own a PS4, replaying it should be a blast with the shorter load times.
