The Last of Us came with a pretty fun and unique multiplayer mode in the form of Factions, and when The Last of Us Part II released, much of the player base was excited to see how Naughty Dog would iterate on an existing formula. We’d gotten a few updates over the past couple years, but as of today, the studio has officially decided to stop development on The Last of Us Online.
Essentially, while Naughty Dog was happy with the way things were progressing with the game, the vision for The Last of Us Online had become so massively ambitious that would require a lot of time and resources for the years to come. Things had gotten to a point where the company had to decide to either continue focusing their efforts on creating single-player games, or become a live service studio that focused on The Last of Us Online.
“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.”
Because Naughty Dog has always been known for putting out quality, narrative-driven, single-player experiences, the decision was made to cancel The Last of Us Online.
It’s definitely a shame, as Factions 2.0 was something that the TLOU community had been looking forward to, but maybe next time.
The Last of Us Part II is now available on PlayStation.
