The Last of Us Online has reportedly been in development for four years with a team of
Naughty Dog has been cancelled The last of us The multiplayer game was reportedly well into development before it was canceled, a decision that reportedly caused an uproar at Sony.
That’s according to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who provided some insight into the scrapped project on Bloomberg’s website. Friends per second podcast (via GamesRadar). While we first discussed the recent layoffs at Bungie, as well as concerns about the Lot 2 upcoming extraction shooter from studio MarathonSchreier quickly moved on to talk about Sony’s current live service games, such as Treaty.
The reporter called Sony’s strategy of pushing live service games “trend-following to the extreme” and “outrageous,” especially when you consider online games that have “broken away from single-player studios.”
Schreier claimed that the Horizon Zero Dawn online game, which was announced in 2022, is “still in development,” but doesn’t know if it will ever come out. He acknowledged that there are rare cases where live service games can be successful, such as Helldivers 2.
On the subject of The last of us onlineSchreier said it was “in development for about four years with a team of hundreds of people” before it was canceled last December.
“That’s an expensive proposition for something that was a failure,” he added. “And that project, which was canceled, was not a bloodless endeavor. There were some heads that rolled at Sony as a result of that project.”
When Naughty Dog made the announcement, it said it had scrapped the project because it didn’t want to “become a studio focused solely on live games” and would have to put all resources into multiplayer projects.
“So we had two options: become a studio focused solely on live games, or continue to focus on the narrative-driven single-player games that have defined Naughty Dog’s history,” the developer said at the time.
Schreier added that he thought Naughty Dog’s decision to cancel the show The last of us online was the right decision, as it should not focus on live service games like other studios.