Naughty Dog has officially ceased development on The Last of Us Factions, canceling the online game due to its “ambition” and the alleged need to pivot the entire studio away from single-player projects.
Earlier this year reports began circulating on the status of Naughty Dog’s highly anticipated TLOU online project. Despite being in development for a number of years, Kotaku’s sources claimed the game was “on ice” as of October, 2023.
This news came at the time of layoffs within the studio, with a reported 25+ contractors let go from their roles. Now, after weeks of speculation, the devs have made it official.
The Last of Us Online is officially dead. The standalone multiplayer project is no longer moving forward at Naughty Dog as the studio claimed it simply grew too ambitious.
An Update on The Last of Us Online: https://t.co/nMUm7TmH9h pic.twitter.com/fmuXCLzDMB
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) December 14, 2023
“There’s no easy way to say this,” the acclaimed first-party PlayStation studio began in a December 14 blog post. “We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.
“We’re equally crushed at the studio as we were looking forward to putting it in your hands.”
Clarifying the game’s time in development, Naughty Dog confirmed it had indeed been in the works since The Last of Us Part 2 got underway, in roughly 2017. Blossoming well beyond the original game’s multiplayer component, they saw this standalone release as an ongoing, live-service experience with “tremendous potential.”
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However, “in ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear.”
In order to not only release The Last of Us Online, but support it for years to come as a thriving live-service title, Naughty Dog claimed it would need to pivot its entire dev team solely to the multiplayer project.
“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.”
Choosing the latter, Naughty Dog has now officially ended work on the multiplayer project. With this decision, the entire studio is now focused on bringing “more than one ambitious, brand new single player game” to life.