Jason Schreier: heads rolling at Sony for the cancellation of The Last of Us Online after 4 years in development
- Thread starter John Elden Ring
- Start date
Well it's also fair to assume Connie was blamed for this and the GaaS stuff crumbling hence she was let goI see people talking about what kind of blame and who was responsible, let's look at the facts.
The new pitch and direction for the Factions team was announced on September 26th 2019.
It will be difficult to know when this new pitch for Factions was accepted, but that at the very least a month before.
Looking at this, who was the Studio Lead at the time this decision was made?
Evan Wells was the sole President at the this decision was made(Naughty Dog previously was run by Co-presidents, but Christophe Balestra retired in April 2017.
Neil Druckman was promoted to Vice President(not Co-president) in 2018.
Neil Druckmann was promoted to Co-president in December 2020, more than a year before the decision for the Factions standalone project.
One could say he was partially responsible, because he could've curtailed his multiplayer's lead effort because he was the Creative Director of TLoU Part II and forced them to ship the original vision, but perhaps it wouldn't of been ready anyway.
Evan Wells retired in at the end of 2023 after the longest stint as Naughty Dog Co-President(started in 2004).
He was the highest decision maker for all things Naughty Dog when it comes to the PS5 generation.
Since she was overseeing the internal GaaS push
It's all but confirmed that the new IP is going to be the next SP game. We know this because of the TLoU Part II Remaster Documentary Naughty Dog put out(that contained the 2016-2020 production footage but also new interviews from 2023).
Neil Druckmann said in the 2023 portion(filmed in April 2023) that he now has an outline and was writing the script.
It's possible TLoU 3 isn't even in the conceptual phase at this point.
The only way this game doesn't come out before the next TLoU game is if it gets cancelled as well.
Because that game is at least 6 years away if not more.
The factions team was the biggest team at the time of its freeze into eventual cancellation. But yeah, the new IP is going to be the next big SP game.
Well it's also fair to assume Connie was blamed for this and the GaaS stuff crumbling hence she was let go
Since she was overseeing the internal GaaS push
It is possible, but since I can't know that much about the internal workings, I don't speculate.
Beyond moronic decision by Sony to cancel Factions. A huge successful IP that even if mediocre could have still made an impact especially when compared to the upcoming Concord, Fairgames and Marathon games. I mean seriously, you gotta be kidding me. What's the point in developing a live service game yet cancel in favor of new IP's that have a far greater chance at failure. And to waste four plus years on it, nah, no way. If anything, Sony should resurrect it. If it takes off, you build a small team to handle content for it while letting the main team go back to doing what they normally do.
Agreed.
But I dont think they cancelled it in favor of new ips. But for sure Sony has enough to fund there best studio to do this
Drake had a good ending. TLOU world has loads of potential. Although I would like Uncharted 5 but not from the main ND team
Granted, not in favor but it's weird to me that Sony would continue with new IP's from non-estanblished or well known studios over two IP's (TLOU Factions and the leaked Spider Man MP game) that by name and studio alone would have a far greater chance at success.
We know that before cancelling TLOU Online, ND was working on minimum two SP games. If later started TLOU3 -which I think is super likely- then they'd working now in three SP games.
We know that these previous two games aren't TLOU3. As I remember in the documentary he mentions that started one of them months before (than April 2023, so early 2023).
In previous interviews, he mentioned that his own project (which can be assumed is the new IP) was in super early stages, so maybe the new IP was the one that started early 2023.
The other SP game, which started months after releasing TLOU2 in mid 2020 (so maybe they started to work on it late 2020 or early 2021), I think can be the Uncharted spinoff that Bend was working on and stopped working on it early 2021. The same one we saw hinted in a PS5 commercial that apparently featured Cassie Drake.
If this is the case, I think it would be smarter for them to rework it to turn it into Uncharted 5, announce it next year and release it in 2026 or maximum 2027.
Yep. Silly to drop those. They have the money to make it happen too.
Both TLOU online and Spiderman online would make more sense than anything else they have. Both decent franchise's, game wise, tv/movie wise etc
Gameplay and engine is mostly ready too
he is studio head. it is all his fault. imagine approving project, 4 years, hundreds of millions cost, just to be canned.
TL;DR: Naughty Dog are fkkd this gen WRT a new mainline SP game that isn't a potentially rushed Uncharted.
We won't see anything truly new from them in the AAA SP space until PlayStation 6. A cork-up of studio management when it comes to priorities, seems like.
I'm glad they canceled that Spiderman multiplayer there's absolutely no need for a Spiderman GaaS considering there's still so many villains arcs they have left for the story. To have a Multiplayer they would need to include characters they probably aren't ready to use in the cinematic games... And overall it's just a pointless oversaturation.
What we need is an Uncharted Online multiplayer game...
What we need is an Uncharted Online multiplayer game...
What I don't understand is why they don't just repurpose what they already built as an add-on to the TLoU2 remaster, we all know it's coming and it can be a significant value-add and drive sales. Sure they might not recoup all the costs but it would be something.
Also yeah we already knew this story, that's why Connie Booth was fired.
Also yeah we already knew this story, that's why Connie Booth was fired.
It could of been an after Spiderman 3 thing. Once the trilogy is over, you can play online. Kinda like GTA online. Spiderman is hugely popular
