The Last Of Us multiplayer game cancelled in favour of new single-player games

Sony’s live service plans lie in tatters, as Naughty Dog cancel The Last Of Us Online and fans celebrate its demise.

Over the last few months, it’s seemed increasingly obvious that there is a secret civil war going on at Sony, for the future direction of PlayStation.

It’s not something anyone’s ever likely to talk about publicly, at least while it’s happening, but with the exit of top execs, including the boss of PlayStation, and no sign of the 10 live service games Sony was planning by 2026 something is very clearly amiss.

The latest evidence of this is that the long-delayed The Last Of Us multiplayer game has now been officially cancelled, and specifically because developer Naughty Dog don’t want to spend all their time making live service games.

‘There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game,’ reads a message on Naughty Dog’s website.

‘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.’

The message is long and goes into some detail, but this is the kicker:

‘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.’

Naughty Dog has previously never confirmed The Last Of Us Online is a live service game but this makes it clear that it is… or rather was.

It was already severely delayed but rumours suggest that it was given an internal appraisal by fellow Sony studio Bungie sometime earlier this year, and that was negative enough to put it on the backburner – even though as recently as last month, the director said he was still working on it.

The only thing Naughty Dog has ever shown of the game is a few pieces of concept art, but the cancellation message does reference the Factions multiplayer mode from the first The Last Of Us, implying what many assumed: that the standalone game would have been an expanded, live service version of Factions.

This means that The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered will be Naughty Dog’s next game, which barely seems a better use of their time and still begs the question of when they’ll actually get around to making something new.

The message ends by saying: ‘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.’

Whether that includes The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered is unclear but while The Last Of Us Part 3 does now seem inevitable, given the success of the TV show, it was previously implied that Naughty Dog’s next single-player project is a new IP.

It’s impossible to guess when that or anything else will be unveiled but what is now certain is that we won’t be hearing about The Last Of Us Online anymore.

Normally, the cancellation of a major PlayStation exclusive, by Sony’s most acclaimed studio, would be cause for concern from fans but the majority seem over the moon that the game has been canned.

Sony’s enthusiasm for live service games is not shared by the majority of players but it’s also a seemingly unpopular direction for many of the developers involved.

If this cancellation indicates that the single-player proponents within Sony are winning their secret war then many will be pleased, and it is going to be very interesting to see who takes over from PlayStation boss Jim Ryan next April and if they end up signalling a new (old) direction for PlayStation first party games.

Update:

Leaker Dust Gollum has apparently released a screenshot of what seems to be the lobby of The Last Of Us Online. It doesn’t really reveal anything new but considering the game was in development for four years it’s more than likely more images and footage will be released in the coming months.

Whether any of that will come officially from Sony or Naughty Dog though, remains to be seen.