Naughty Dog’s hyped The Last of Us online multiplayer game, once said to be the most ambitious thing they’ve ever worked on, has been canceled. We’d heard for a while that the project was “on ice” following an unfavorable internal assessment by Bungie. That said, the game was never officially canceled. That’s now changed, with Naughty Dog providing a very clear reason for the change – they realized fully supporting a live service game would essentially mean becoming a live service studio, and they don’t want to do that.
“We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online. There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.
We know this news will be tough for many, especially our dedicated The Last of Us Factions community, who have been following our multiplayer ambitions ardently. We’re equally crushed at the studio as we were looking forward to putting it in your hands. We wanted to share with you some background of how we came to this decision.
The multiplayer team has been in pre-production with this game since we were working on The Last of Us Part II – crafting an experience we felt was unique and had tremendous potential. As the multiplayer team iterated on their concept for The Last of Us Online during this time, their vision crystalized, the gameplay got more refined and satisfying, and we were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed.
In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear. To release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.
We are immensely proud of everyone at the studio that touched this project. The learnings and investments in technology from this game will carry into how we develop our projects and will be invaluable in the direction we are headed as a studio. We have more than one ambitious, brand new single player game that we’re working on here at Naughty Dog, and we cannot wait to share more about what comes next when we’re ready.”
Frankly, I think a lot of Naughty Dog fans are breathing a sigh of relief at this news. It would be rather depressing if Naughty Dog, of all studios, just became another team pumping out seasonal updates, battle pass unlockables, and cosmetics.
What do you think? Were you looking forward to The Last of Us multiplayer? Or are you relieved Naughty Dog has steered the cart back onto the right path?
