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Sony could be considering a PC port for The Last Of Us Part II, according to this job advertisement (via Jack Of All Controllers).
Last week, Naughty Dog was found to be seeking a graphics programmer with a knack for “DirectX12, Vulkan or other modern graphics or compute APIs” as well as a “thorough understanding of current GPU architectures (AMD GCN, NVIDIA CUDA).” If the potential applicant has worked with consoles or PCs in the past, that’s even better. As The Last of Us Part II is definitely coming to the PlayStation 4, and will likely arrive on the PlayStation 5, this is a bit odd. Neither console possesses an Nvidia graphics processing unit. In fact, AMD and Nvidia are rivals, so a possible reason why a Sony studio would be seeking someone with experience with both competitors’ products is…
… if the game would also be released for PC, because the innards of PCs vary much more widely than the garden variety PlayStation. This is the third PlayStation game that seems to be getting a PC port. Last year, Kojima Productions confirmed that Death Stranding is coming to PC in the future. Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn may be moving to PC, which marks a major move for Sony. Horizon Zero Dawn would be the first exclusive game from a Sony-owned developer to go multiplatform. Just like this possible The Last of Us Part II port, that is unconfirmed for the moment, but it is interesting.
However, we must take this job opportunity with a hefty helping of salt. Maybe Naughty Dog is looking for someone who has a range of experience with console and PC hardware. It doesn’t specifically say that the applicant must be well-versed in PC programming, and AMD and Nvidia are mentioned in the same sentence. Additionally, wouldn’t it make more sense to port the original game? If a PC port of The Last of Us was launched around the same time as the The Last of Us Part II, Sony could snag players who weren’t able to play the game first (and second) time around. Then when the PlayStation 5 is out, those people could be persuaded to pick up the console to play The Last of Us Part II. That is purely speculation, and we aren’t able to say either way regarding this job opening. But, given the rumours of a Horizon Zero Dawn PC port, you’d forgive us for getting a little ahead of ourselves.
The Last of Us Part II will launch for PlayStation 4 on May 29, 2020.
