The Last of Us fan creates patch that fixes 8-year-old glitch

The Last of Us
(Image credit: Sony / Naughty Dog)

A mostly hidden glitch which has plagued The Last of Us since its release has been fixed due to a fan-made patch. 

Thanks to illusion0001, who shared a clip of the fix to YouTube, fans will now be able to play the first The Last of Us without any hiccups. That is, if you ever encountered this glitch in the first place as it’s not exactly a common occurrence. 

According to GameRant, the 'Head Crash' glitch would happen whenever an NPC would cut the head off of a zombie, and the player would throw something at the discarded head. As demonstrated in the video above, the PS4 (and apparently PS3 version too) would crash and show the “an error has occurred in the following application” screen which would then restart the game. 

The unofficial patch supposedly fixes the glitch by “altering how the game reads collision data” and is apparently a relatively easy fix in the game. Although this fix won’t mean a lot to many of us playing The Last of Us, it does save any future players the unnecessary accidental headache.

Illusion0001 has also created other mods and fixes for not only The Last of Us but also other Naughty Dog titles. One mod in particular causes all NPCs in The Last of Us to shrink down to the size of ants, they’ve also shared a mod that causes Sully in Uncharted 3 to shrink down too. 

In terms of more official patches, Naughty Dog has supposedly got a The Last of Us 2 PS5 patch in the works, according to a reputable leaker. If a patch is anything like other next-gen patches then fans can expect the game to look even better than it already does on PS4 with potential frame-rate and resolution upgrades. 

If you’re still working your way through this series, make sure to check out our The Last of Us 2 tips

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.