Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy have proudly announced a major set of improvements for their PC port of The Last of Us Part 1. A social media message from yesterday stated: "Patch 1.1 is now live for The Last of Us Part I on PC, including performance improvements, fixes for various crashes, and more. Read the patch notes here. We are also happy to announce that Part I is now Steam Deck Verified.✅"

The development team has outlined a significant number of improvements for the PC version—just in time for the game's tenth anniversary celebrations this week. The patch notes mention tweaks for global CPU and GPU performance, texture and environment load times, a full shader rebuild as well as fixes for multiple types of game crashes. General performance on Steam Deck has been improved, and a memory leak issue has been addressed which previously caused crashes on the handheld system. These fixes very likely got Valve's attention, hence the granting of Verified status.

Julian Huijbregts, Online Community Specialist at Nixxes Software states: "Hey everyone, the intergalactic adventurers Ratchet & Clank are making their debut on PC this summer! At Nixxes Software, we are all very excited to announce our next project in collaboration with Insomniac Games. The Ratchet & Clank franchise recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. We are thrilled and honored to bring this iconic franchise to a new audience. If you haven't played a game from this series before, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is an excellent one to start with.

The game is a visual spectacle that is perfectly suitable for newcomers thanks to a standalone storyline and the introduction of two brand new characters: Rivet & Kit. We can't wait for you to meet these intergalactic heroes and start your multidimensional adventure when the game launches on July 26. Today I can share the first details on the PC features for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that our team has been working on and tell you more about the pre-purchase bonuses."

Santa Monica Studio, a video game developer, seated in Los Angeles and owned by PlayStation Studios, is the creator of the highly successful game God of War. Today, the company announced that they would be releasing a God of War port for PC owners, entering a whole new market. The PC port of the game will allow thousands of players to enjoy the story of Kratos and his adventures with a considerable boost to graphics. According to a company announcement, the PC port will allow fine-tuning of graphics settings, including a range of new technologies to back it.

Some essential upgrades over the console port include native 4K rendering and an unlimited frame rate. The company stated that the ambient occlusion pipeline had been upgraded with GTAO and SSDO tech, creating unique visuals. In addition to that, the game will feature support for NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Reflex low-latency technology. For controllers, the game will feature support for Sony's DualSense and DualShock4 controllers. And last but not least, ultrawide gamers are in luck as well, as the game will support a 21:9 aspect ratio. The game is going to be available on January 14, 2022, on the Steam storefront.

For some PC visuals, check out the images and the video below.

At its IR Day 2021 Game & Network Services Segment, Sony themselves have spilled the cat out of the bag regarding ports from their first-party studios to the PC realm. Case in point: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, developed by naughty Dog, will be releasing on the PC platform at some point in the future. The information is tucked away at page 26 of Sony's documentation. This comes as no surprise, considering other tidbits Sony shared regarding its PC initiative: the company achieved a 250% ROI (Return on Investment) with the port of Horizon: Zero Dawn to PC and more recently Days Gone, meaning that porting costs were more than recouped.

Of course, the ROI also has to take into account the potential decrease in value of the PlayStation brand with the relative loss of exclusivity, but this doesn't seem much different from Microsoft's strategy of delivering console exclusives that still make it onto the PC space (and the company has been doubling down on those efforts, and they surely wouldn't be doing so if they were losing money).

An unofficial port of Super Mario 64 for PC was released on various online forums last week, this port was made possible through reverse engineering of the game's source code obtained by fans over the past few years. This PC port differed from existing options such as N64 emulation as it allows the game to run at far greater resolutions than its native resolution of 240p with resolutions such as 4K, 4K ultra-wide or even 8K now possible at uncapped frame rates. The DirectX 12 powered port came with other features such as controller support and the ability to add modern visual effects including ray tracing through third-party tools such as Reshade.

As expected Nintendo is not pleased with the port and has taken steps to get it removed from various sites, Nintendo has reportedly contracted US law firm Wildwood Law Group LLC who refer to the unofficial Super Mario 64 PC port as an "unauthorized derivative work based on Nintendo's copyrighted work." In addition to the download link takedowns, several YouTube videos featuring gameplay of the port have also been removed. Nintendo will want to get this port removed from the internet as soon as possible, especially given their plans to release new and remastered Mario games for the Nintendo Switch this year.

This author has strong memories of playing the original Katamari Damacy on the Playstation 2 when it came out in 2004. It was wacky even for the time, and especially so now, with interesting gameplay combined with an excellent soundtrack. As such, it was a pleasant surprise to see Katamari Damacy get an HD remaster, titled Katamari Damacy Reroll, which will be coming to the Nintendo Switch and, more relevant to us, the PC. Bandai Namco confirms a Steam release on December 8, 2018 for what should be ~$29.99 if the pre-order for the Nintendo Switch version is anything to go by.

If you have no idea what the game is all about, know that it can be technically classified as a 3rd-person puzzle-action game but it is really something that merits playing to be better understood. The original game was on the shorter side of average, with some repetition along the way when it came to gameplay mechanics, but it still did more than enough to be a commercial success and get a cult following through the years. With Katamari Damacy Reroll, PC gamers will get to take a look at the game while enjoying the upgraded visuals with an increased resolution and added cut-scenes. Below is the announcement video from Nintendo Direct, which of course shows off some features that us PC gamers will not be getting.

Capcom's, Monster Hunter World, which has already proven to be a rousing success on console, will release on PC as of August 9th. With the release date fast approaching, the performance of the games PC Port has begun to surface online. The game is regarded as being rather demanding on hardware considering what is on offer visually. However, one of the major reasons for that is how Capcom's MT Framework engine, which powers the game, works.

As explained by William Yagi-Bacon, Capcom USA's vice president of digital platforms and marketing, on the Resetera forums, Monster Hunter World and by extension the MT Framework engine, uses the CPU quite heavily. The game loads the entire level into memory while maintaining a wide range of interactions and calculations between the player and environment. As a result, it can effectively load all eight threads of an Intel i7 7700K at 4.4 GHz. Meaning older CPUs will likely struggle, being the limiting factor when paired with newer higher end graphics cards.