Naughty Dog officially scraps plans for The Last of Us multiplayer game

Since the release of The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog has been working away on an expanded multiplayer game to follow up on The Last of Us: Factions. Unfortunately, after several years of development, the studio has now decided to pull the plug. 

In a statement published last night, Naughty Dog confirmed that it has decided to cancel ‘The Last of Us Online', the internal name used to describe the project. As Naughty Dog began “ramping up to full production” it realised just how much of an undertaking it truly was and that it would likely impact development of the studio's upcoming single-player games. Given that Naughty Dog is one of the best in the industry when it comes to story-driven games, it would have been a huge shame to see the company transition into a multiplayer-focused studio.

Naughty Dog specifically notes that if it continued with this project, it would have had to transform into “a solely live service games studio”. Like many Naughty Dog fans, those within the company did not want to go down this path. As a result, The Last of Us multiplayer project is no longer going to release.

It is unclear why Naughty Dog was attempting to build such a massive multiplayer project when many fans simply wanted a new version of the barebones multiplayer from the original The Last of Us game. Still, it looks like Naughty Dog will now refocus its efforts purely on single-player games once again.

KitGuru Says: A number of traditionally single-player studios have run into huge issues transitioning to live service multiplayer. Crystal Dynamics with Marvel's Avengers, Bioware with Anthem and PlatinumGames with Babylon's Fall are a few examples that immediately spring to mind. The jury is still out on Rocksteady with its Suicide Squad game, but there are plenty of other examples. Even Bungie struggled for years getting Destiny to a point that players were happy with, only for much of that effort to be squandered this year with the Lightfall expansion, which led to players dropping the game in large numbers.  

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