With Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, players will be returning to the Batman: Arkham universe five years after the events of Arkham Knight, but once the open world looter shooter is out, will that be it for the universe?
15.12.2023 - 02:31 / destructoid.com / Neil Druckmann / Last Of Us
The Last of Us won’t be returning to its multiplayer side after all. Naughty Dog confirmed today that it has stopped development on what it’s been calling The Last of Us Online, a multiplayer TLOU experience.
The project has been in development for some time, with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann taking the stage at Summer Game Fest 2022 to talk about it. Outside of concept art, the multiplayer endeavor has been mostly quiet, with the team saying it needed more time earlier this year.
In today’s statement, the studio explains some of its reasoning behind the decision to call off The Last of Us Online. The multiplayer team had been in pre-production since the studio was working on The Last of Us Part II. But as production continued, the size of what lay before them became a little more clear.
“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.”
With that, it sounds like Naughty Dog is sticking to single-player offerings. The studio states it has “more than one ambitious, brand new single player game” it is working one, and will share more when the team is ready.
While fans of the story-driven offerings from Naughty Dog might be relieved at that statement, it is an interesting wrinkle in the live-service plans of Sony. In 2022, Sony was queued up to deliver a giant swath of live-service titles, with 12 arriving by the end of its fiscal year 2025.
Last month, though, Sony delayed half of that slate. That, coupled with prior reports about The Last of Us‘ multiplayer setbacks, makes the whole live-service plan look shaky. Reports also came out about Bungie, another Sony studio working on the massive live-service FPS Destiny 2, and the struggles that studio is encountering following a wave of layoffs.
For The Last of Us, at least, there is some sun on the horizon. Naughty Dog is releasing The Last of Us Part II Remastered for PS5 very soon, with some lost levels and a new roguelike mode. It might be enough to soften the blow for the weary Factions hopefuls.
With Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, players will be returning to the Batman: Arkham universe five years after the events of Arkham Knight, but once the open world looter shooter is out, will that be it for the universe?
The fate of The Last of Us Online hung in the balance for a long while, with mixed signals being sent from Sony and Naughty Dog. It all started before the launch of The Last of Us Part II when it was announced that there would be no Factions multiplayer mode like in the original game.
Naughty Dog’s planned multiplayer game set in the world of The Last of Us is no more. The studio announced Thursday that it has “made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on” what it’s been calling The Last of Us Online.
Naughty Dog have officially stopped development of The Last Of Us Online, a multiplayer game based on their celebrated McCarthyite (no, not that McCarthy - I mean the novelist) post-apocalyptic action-adventure. Announced in the dusty days of 2018 as a multiplayer mode for The Last Of Us: Part 2, it evolved into a standalone experience with new characters and a new setting, but Sony reportedly scaled the project back earlier this year. Naughty Dog have now formally called it quits, stating that supporting a live service project such as this would have “severely impacted” future single-player game projects. Sony never locked down platforms for The Last Of Us Online, but a PC release was surely on the cards, though I would have expected the game to launch first on PlayStation, as with the original Last Of Us and Uncharted 4.
There was a ton of hype built up around The Last of Us Online. It was going to be a different kind of gameplay experience than what Naughty Dog is mainly known for. We’ve seen this studio turn out some incredibly detailed single-player experiences. But rather than adding a multiplayer component to The Last of Us Part II, a full-on multiplayer gameplay experience was being worked on. Unfortunately, as you all likely have heard, Naughty Dog has unveiled that production for this multiplayer title based on The Last of Us franchise has been killed off.
The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has confirmed that more than one single-player game is in development at the studio.
The Last of Us multiplayer spin-off has effectively been canceled at Naughty Dog.
Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online.
Naughty Dog has cancelled The Last Of Us Online.
Naughty Dog has announced that it has officially ended development on The Last of Us Online, with the studio explaining that the decision was made so it could continue to focus on crafting the narrative-driven single player experiences it’s known for. And interestingly enough, it turns out there are more than one of those games in development at Naughty Dog right now.
Following reports that development on Naughty Dog's long-awaited The Last of Us multiplayer game had been «slowed down» earlier this year, the studio has announced it's officially pulling the plug on the project, saying it didn't want to become a «solely live service games studio».
The Last of Us Online has been cancelled after more than three years in development. Naughty Dog made the announcement today, arguing that the ambitious project would require the studio to pivot entirely to post-launch support (read: a live service future) rather than their raison d'etre: big budget singleplayer narrative adventures.