As fans patiently anticipate the first anniversary of The Last of Us 2, others have decided to focus their attention on the first game in the series and its HD remaster. Working with the nearly eight year old The Last of Us, fans of Naughty Dog's cinematic title have introduced a mod to patch out a strange glitch that the developer had never fixed before.
Modder Illusion0001 has now introduced the new mod that "unofficially patches" this strange bug in The Last of Us: Remastered, the PS4 rerelease with updated visuals and DLC included. Considering that every game in the series, HD remasters included, have been exclusive to consoles, mods of Naughty Dog's titles are rare, though Illusion0001 has worked on some before, including this same patch for PS3.
The glitch itself is one that players might not exactly run into too often, which could explain why Naughty Dog never bothered to address it in the first place, instead making sure to focus on developing new content for the series. It would happen whenever an NPC or non-player activated event would cut the head off of a zombie, leaving the body part behind on the ground. If players choose to throw something at the severed head of Last of Us' fungus infected zombies, it would immediately crash the game, in both the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game.
This newest mod fixes the issue that causes the crash by altering how the game reads collision data, specifically when an object that otherwise doesn't have a designation like these severed heads. It's a relatively simple fix for fans that might be more familiar with physics coding, and the "unofficial patch" works similarly to how Illusion0001 had addressed the problem in the PS3 version. The point now, is that players who choose to open up the first The Last of Us can make sure that they don't accidentally run into the crash thanks to this mod.
Considering how uncommon the "head crash" is, there's a chance that Naughty Dog has been aware of the issue, but it's mostly been a matter of focusing on more pressing development that had it slip through the cracks. That doesn't necessarily mean it's okay for developers to let issues, especially ones that cause a game to crash and possibly lose a lot of progress. For now, fans can be thankful that other players like Illusion0001 can pick up some of the slack that has been left by the developer in an otherwise smooth gameplay experience.
The Last of Us is available now for PS3, PS4, and PS5.
Source: Github