Naughty Dog cancels 'The Last of Us Online,' citing live-service challenges

Image: Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog has announced the cancellation of The Last of Us Online, a multiplayer spin-off of its acclaimed series. The studio said it could not sustain the live-service demands of the game while also creating its signature single-player games.

The studio revealed the news in a December 14 update, saying it was a “very hard decision” to stop development on the project. The game was supposed to be the studio’s “biggest online experience” ever, as big as any of its single-player games.

However, Naughty Dog realized that supporting the game with ongoing content would require “all our studio resources” and compromise its ability to “focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.” The studio faced a dilemma between becoming a “purely live-service games studio” like Bungie, the maker of Destiny 2, or sticking to its core strength of storytelling.

The Last of Us Online was first announced during Summer Game Fest 2022, but Naughty Dog never showed any gameplay or details beyond some concept art. In May, Bloomberg reported that the game had been scaled back after negative feedback from an internal review by Bungie, which Sony bought last year. In October, Kotaku reported that the game had been “put on ice” amid many contractors being let go.

The Last of Us Online was part of Sony’s ambitious push into live-service games, which are more profitable and popular than traditional single-player games. However, Sony recently admitted that half of its online games would be delayed beyond 2025 due to various challenges.

Naughty Dog said it is still working on a “new single-player game” that it will reveal in the future.

Source