The Last of Us Cancels Multiplayer Mode
After months of speculation, Naughty Dog officially canceled its planned multiplayer spin-off of The Last of Us, today. The studio cited its focus on its single-player games as the reason. The news dashed the hopes of game fans who looked forward to promises made earlier by the studio.
According to reports earlier this year, Sony‘s Pre-eminent studio had put the multiplayer mode on hold after layoffs during the summer, Yet, there was no official word on whether fans could expect development to rebound. The studio chose instead to remain silent.
In a new post on the Naughty Dog website, the studio announced that the multiplayer project is dead. This is despite it being in production since The Last of Us Part II was in development.
“We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online,” the post starts. It continues, “There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.”
However, the basis for the decision made little sense and complicated the mystery even more. Some critics have opined that financial issues may be more rational.
“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 the development of 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.”
While the continued support of The Last of Us II continues to be the focal point of the studio, it remains unclear what other projects are being considered at this point.