Naughty Doghas officially announced that it is canceling its highly-anticipated online multiplayer game based in the universe of The Last of Us, claiming that it would need to take more attention away from its single player projects than it wants to.
Ina statement on the developer’s official website, Naughty Dog claims that it realized upon ramping up to full production that the scope of the title would be too big for the studio to handle. It claims that in order to properly support the title going forward, it would need to divert more resources away from its single player projects currently in development and become a solely live service developer.
To dampen the disappointment that some fans of The Last of Us may be feeling after hearing this news, Naughty Dog ended its statement by claiming that the studio has multiple new single player games in development, which feels like a small hint that we may be getting another game fromThe Last of UsorUncharted, along witha new fantasy IP that is reportedly in the works.
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.
Those that have kept up to date with the title, which was highly rumored to be The Last of Us Factions 2, probably won’t be too surprised to hear this news. Ever since Naughty Dog confirmed that the title is in development, we’ve heard nothing but bad news from the studio, including rumors that ithad been put “on ice"after Destiny 2 developer Bungie was brought in to assess its quality.
This could also represent a shift in thinking at PlayStation, which has made no secret that it plans to dive deep into the live service market in the future. It currently has a total of 12 live service currently in development,half of which were delayed back in November, as the companies seemingly attempts to create its own Fortnite or Call of Duty.
We don’t know whether these plans have changed, but thankfully, PlayStation has the brains not to sacrifice one of its most prestigious developers of single player experiences to go and chase trends. Hopefully, the cancelation of The Last of Us Factions 2 doesn’t have too much of an impact on Naughty Dog as a whole, but the direction thatthe games industry has been going over the last yeardoesn’t fill you with confidence.
