The Last Of Us Part 1 PC building shaders issue explained

If you’re one of the many people unable to complete building shaders in The Last of Us Part 1 PC, we’re going to give a full breakdown of the problem and what can be done to fix it.

The Last of Us Part 1, which has been out on PlayStation since September of last year, launched on PC this week, but gamers have encountered a range of different issues stopping them from enjoying or even playing the game.

These include stuttering and the game failing to launch. Hopefully, all of these will be fixed soon, especially the particularly frustrating shader issue we’re discussing here.

If you are a PC gamer, you’ve likely noticed that when a newly downloaded game is first launched, there are several one-off processes that occur before you can play. One of these is building the shaders. We’ll be going into more detail about what exactly a shader is later on.

If you are familiar with the process you’ll know that it usually takes around 5-10 minutes to complete. However, for The Last of Us Part 1 PC there seems to be a fairly widespread issue with the process taking far longer for many, or sometimes freezing entirely for hours.

This is clearly a fault in the game itself as it should never take this long. Let’s get into what the issue is and potential fixes for it.

What is causing the building shader issue in The Last of Us Part 1 PC?

While the exact cause is not yet known, it’s clear the problem in building the shaders in The Last of Us Part 1 relates to the PC port. It is likely a case of poor optimization or a specific bug.

Shaders are a collection of smaller programs that run on your graphics card, they relate to specific aspects of the image generation process, for example how light reflects, bounces or casts shadows from frame to frame.

Read more: Best GPU for The Last of Us Part I PC

When they are working well they will be optimised to your specific hardware. Because there are so many different possible set-ups they need to work for, the exact shader programs will end up being slightly different for each one, once they are installed.

This is why the game must built them when it is launched for the first time on a new computer.

With this in mind, and considering how widespread it is, it is clear the problem is with the game code itself rather than your hardware. That said, it is possible that certain hardware combinations are more likely to suffer.

Can you fix the building shader issue in The Last of Us Part 1 PC?

There are some workarounds that users have been reporting as solving the issue for them. Here they are.

• Wait to see if the process completes
• Restart your PC
• Disconnect from the internet
• Wait for a patch

Because this issue is within the code of the game itself, not your PC, the only thing that will be able to solve the issue entirely is a patch.

That said, sometimes small and seemingly random things can stop the code from running into a potential issue. None of these are certified or certain fixes but it is definitely worth giving them a go. However, it is possible you will just have to sit tight until the patch is released.

Wait to see if the process completes

Whilst we acknowledge this is not actually a fix, it does seem that for many, while the progress is slow, it does eventually complete.

There is still clearly something wrong here as building shaders should not take hours. If you have the patience though it could be the quickest way to get playing the game, rather than waiting for an update.

Restart your PC

The good old off-and-on-again trick. Players have reported this clearing the issue for them, so it is definitely worth a shot. This is better to go for if your progress has really faltered or seems to have stopped entirely.

Make sure you close the program before you restart your computer.

Disconnect from the internet

One Reddit user reported that when his steam disconnected from the internet for weekly maintenance the shader-building process quickly sped up. This is definitely a solution that is worth trying as you have nothing to lose, but it is possible this is simply a coincidence and we haven’t seen many other users reporting this working.

Wait for a patch

The issue has been acknowledged by Naughty Dog, the game’s developer, and added to their ‘known issues‘ page. On it they said ‘are working on patches, will provide updates as they become available, and will continue to investigate other reported issues’.

A patch should solve the issue entirely. We’ll update this page once one is released. When it is you will simply need to install it and then restart the game.

Frequently asked questions

Can you get a refund for The Last of Us Part 1 PC?

Yes, a refund is accessible from the Steam store. Simply open steam and click the Last of Us Part 1 from the list of your recently purchased games and then click ‘refund’.