Naughty Dog cancels its multiplayer game The Last of Us
Naughty Dog's new multiplayer game set in the world of The Last of Us is no more. The developer announced Thursday that it has “made the incredibly difficult decision to halt development on” what it calls The last of us online.
“We know this news will be difficult for many, especially our dedicated The Last of Us Factions community, who are passionately following our multiplayer ambitions,” the studio said in a message on its website. “We are as in love with the studio as we were looking forward to putting it in your hands.”
The last of us online would be revealed to the public at some point this year. The studio had released a handful of concept art for the game, but never showed any gameplay.
Naughty Dog said the studio's developers were in pre-production The last of us online since the development of The Last of Us Part 2who released it in 2020. The online game was “unique and had enormous potential,” the studio said, but also a daunting task that they didn't have the resources to dedicate to.
“As we ramped up to full production, the enormous scope of our ambition became clear,” the developer explained. “To let go and support The last of us online we would have to dedicate all of our studio resources to supporting post-launch content for years, which would severely impact the development of future single-player games. So we had two paths in front of us: become a strictly live-service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog's legacy.”
Naughty Dog has a separate and brand new single-player game in the works; something unannounced, but a project it teased back in May when it told fans The last of us online needed more time to develop. The studio also plans to release The Last of Us part 2 remastered for PlayStation 5 in January.
In the announcement, Naughty Dog provided a silver lining The last of us online's formal cancellation: “The lessons and technology investments from this game will impact the way we develop our projects and will be invaluable in the direction we go as a studio. We have more than one ambitious, brand new single-player game we're working on here at Naughty Dog, and we can't wait to share more about what comes next when we're ready.”
Naughty Dog said back in 2018 that it planned to deliver a multiplayer component The Last of Us Part 2a game that was first announced in 2016.
The original The last of us launched with its own multiplayer component in 2013, which was also available in the PlayStation 4 version, The Last of Us remastered. TLOUThe game's Factions mode took deathmatch and team deathmatch modes from many multiplayer games, and added a metagame and story on top.