Naughty Dog has cancelled their The Last of Us online game. The PlayStation Studio’s developer released a statement on their blog last night confirming they had stopped development of the game.
“There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game. Naughty Dog said in a statement.
Naughty Dog acknowledged that the news of the cancellation would be tough for fans of The Last of Us Factions. The studio said they were “equally as crushed” as they were looking forward to putting the game into players’ hands.
The Last of Us Online had been in production since the main team where working on The Last of Us Part 2 the statement says. In October it was reported that the multiplayer game had not been cancelled but was “on ice.” Further back in May, Naughty Dog said that the game needs more time. And more recently, just last month a Naughty Dog developer said the game was still being worked on.
In their statement announcing the cancellation of The Last of Us Online, Naughty DOg said that they would have to put the full resources of their studio behind releasing and supporting the game. And that this would severely impact the development of future single-player games.
“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.” The studio said.
We had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games
Naughty Dog
Naughty Dog had two paths in front of them
The developer explained that they had two paths in front of them. Become a solely live-service studio or continue to focus on single-player, narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage. Some fans think that this particular statement is a bit hyperbolic but I think Naughty Dog has made the correct decision.
If The Last of Us Online would have had any sort of detrimental impact on Naughty Dog’s future single-player game output, then cancelling was the right choice. I for one could not envisage a PlayStation future without single;e-player, narrative-driven Naughty Dog games.
Naughty Dog ended their statement by saying they are immensely proud of everyone who worked on the project. They also said that the learning and technology investment from this game will carry into future Naughty Dog projects. “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”
You can read Naughty Dog’s full statement on their website.
Although The Last of Us Online is now cancelled, Naughty Dog is set to release The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered for PS5 on January 19th.
