Naughty Dog stops development of multiplayer game The Last of Us Online

Naughty Dog cancels The Last of Us Online. According to the developer, maintaining and updating the multiplayer game as a live service title requires too much work, which negatively impacts the company’s single-player games.

Alleged concept art for The Last of Us Online

In a blog post the American company writes that since the development of The Last of Us Part II, which started sometime before 2020, it has been working on what is called The Last of Us Online in the blog post. Gameplay for the multiplayer game is said to already be relatively refined, and the company says it was excited about the direction the game was taking.

However, according to Naughty Dog, it wasn’t until production ramped up that it became clear that the full power of the studio would be needed to continue working on the game after release. “We had two options: become purely a live service game studio or focus on single-player stories that define Naughty Dog’s legacy.”

The company says that the investments in the canceled title have not been in vain and that certain techniques developed for this purpose can be used in future games. Naughty Dog says it is working on various single-player games. Sony announced roughly a month ago that half of its scheduled live service games were being postponed. Sony Interactive Entertainment is the parent company of Naughty Dog.

It is not the first time that Naughty Dog has ended up canceling a multiplayer game. In 2019 it was announced that the Factions mode before The Last of Us Part II would no longer be released. In 2021, recruitment began for a standalone multiplayer game, which would likely be The Last of Us Online. The title was never announced in detail and was already postponed internally earlier this year.

Source: Naughty Dog / Sony