The Last of Us multiplayer game has been cancelled by Naughty Dog, following reports that the beleaguered mode has been put “on ice” earlier this year.
“We realise many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online,” Naughty Dog said in a statement. “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,” Naughty Dog continued, “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.”
Further Naughty Dog insisted that the online multiplayer had a “massive scope” and that many resources would have been needed to support “post launch content for years to come”. That need would have shifted the studio to a multiplayer-focused one and not one that could work on single-player titles.
In the end, Naughty Dog said it faced a choice of becoming a “solely live service games studio” or continuing “to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage”, and chose the latter.
Naughty Dog’s decision comes at a time where parent company Sony has slowed down half of its planned live service offerings.
The next thing we’ll see from Naughty Dog is The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered in January 2024.
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