The episodic online multiplayer for Last of Us for PS5 is over

Latest of us online He died. Naughty Dog announced today that a multiplayer spin-off of the hit series is no longer in development, citing concerns about managing ongoing content for the live service game while still trying to produce the single-player blockbusters that the PlayStation studio is known for.

“We realize that many of you have been anticipating news about the project we have been advocating “Last of us online” Naughty Dog wrote in a December 14 update. “There’s no easy way to say this: we’ve made the very difficult decision to stop development of that game.”

The studio said that as production on the project ramped up, it became clear that “we will have to put all of our studio resources into supporting post-launch content for years to come, severely impacting the development of future single-player games.” The choices seemed to be between becoming a “stream-only game studio” in the modern Bungie mold, which made… Destiny 2Or “Continue the focus on the single-player narrative games that defined Naughty Dog’s legacy.”

Latest of us onlinewhich many fans previously referred to as Factions Following the multiplayer mode from the original 2013 PlayStation 3 game, it was It was first announced during Summer Game Fest 2022. The spin-off has been described as the studio’s “largest online experience” ever, as large as any of its single-player games.

But Naughty Dog never showed the game beyond vague statements and concept art. Then in May of this year, Bloomberg mentioned The game’s production team has been reduced following negative feedback from an internal review conducted by Bungie, which was acquired by Sony last year. At that time, the studio published Statement on Twitter Saying that while things were going well, the game required more time. But by October, Kotaku mentioned The project has been “frozen” amid some internal adjustments and the dismissal of dozens of contracted developers.

Latest of us online It was one of a number of new multiplayer projects in development across Sony Studios as the PlayStation 5 maker invested in a massive shift towards more live service games. In November, Sony revealed during an earnings call that half of the nearly two dozen online games it was working on were in the works It will be postponed until after 2025.

Meanwhile, Naughty Dog is still working on a “brand new single-player game” and plans to reveal it at some point in the future.

here Full Naughty Dog blog post:

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

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

The multiplayer team has been in pre-production on this game since we were working on The Last of Us Part II – crafting an experience that we felt was unique and had huge potential. As the multiplayer team iterated on their concept for The Last of Us Online during this time, their vision crystallized, the gameplay became more precise and satisfying, and we were excited about the direction we were headed.

By reaching full production, the enormous scale of our ambition became clear. To release and support The Last of Us Online, we will have to put all of our studio resources into supporting post-launch content for years to come, severely impacting the development of future single-player games. So, we had two paths: become a live-service-only game studio or continue to focus on the single-player narrative games that defined Naughty Dog’s legacy.

We are so proud of everyone at the studio who touched this project. The lessons learned and investments in technology from this game will impact how we develop our projects and will be invaluable in the direction we take as a studio. We have more than one brand-new, ambitious single-player game we’re working on here at Naughty Dog, and we can’t wait to share more about what’s coming next when we’re ready.

Until then, we are extremely grateful to our community for your support over the years.