I saw this [tweet](https://twitter.com/tidux/status/1265764676606078976) (thanks Logan) that compared a scene from [[The Last of Us Part II State of Play|yesterday’s State of Play]] to the same scene in the 2017 Paris Games Week trailer. *The Last of Us Part II* has gotten quite the visual upgrade and polish over the last three years. The news cycle is used to discussing video game visual downgrades, often blown out of proportion by [a vocal, seemingly-entitled, minority of whiners](https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/19/18001514/spider-man-ps4-photo-mode-puddle-sticker). I figured it’d be nice to share the improvements this time around. I recaptured the screenshots from direct downloaded footage, instead of through Twitter’s compression. I even made a GIF that alternates between the two screenshots. Turns out that three years of development can help make a game look better. ![[ian_2017.png.webp]] ![[ian_2020.png.webp]] ![[compare_gif_1080.gif]]