Naughty Dog is na de release van The Last of Us: Part II aan de slag gegaan met een multiplayer game in hetzelfde universum: The Last of Us Online. Van die game heeft de ontwikkelaar wat beelden getoond, maar veel was het niet.

Eerder dit jaar heeft Bungie als zijnde specialist op het gebied van live service games het project bekeken en geëvalueerd, waarna besloten werd het team te verkleinen en de boel om te gooien.

Daar had de ontwikkelaar bijgevolg meer tijd voor nodig, al waren het eigenlijk al tekenen aan de wand. Het zal daarom voor niemand een verrassing zijn dat het project is geannuleerd. Dit heeft de ontwikkelaar via zijn website vannacht bekendgemaakt.

Naughty Dog schrijft het volgende:

”We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online. There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.

We know this news will be tough for many, especially our dedicated The Last of Us Factions community, who have been following our multiplayer ambitions ardently. We’re equally crushed at the studio as we were looking forward to putting it in your hands. We wanted to share with you some background of how we came to this decision.

The multiplayer team has been in pre-production with this game since we were working on The Last of Us Part II – crafting an experience we felt was unique and had tremendous potential. As the multiplayer team iterated on their concept for The Last of Us Online during this time, their vision crystalized, the gameplay got more refined and satisfying, and we were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed.

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.

We are immensely proud of everyone at the studio that touched this project. 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. We have more than one ambitious, brand new single player game that we’re working on here at Naughty Dog, and we cannot wait to share more about what comes next when we’re ready.

Until then, we’re incredibly thankful to our community for your support throughout the years.”

Het goede nieuws is dat Naugthy Dog aangeeft aan meerdere nieuwe singleplayer games te werken. Ook blijkt uit de verklaring dat de studio onderaan de streep de klassieke singleplayer games liever trouw blijft dan te transformeren in een live service studio. Iets waar velen ongetwijfeld blij mee zullen zijn.