Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online. Also an image showing The Last of Us Online’s menu leak

[Ludwig]

An Update on The Last of Us Online || Naughty Dog

naughtydog.com

We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online. There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.
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. We wanted to share with you some background of how we came to this decision.
The multiplayer team has been in pre-production with this game since we were working on The Last of Us Part II – crafting an experience we felt was unique and had tremendous potential. As the multiplayer team iterated on their concept for The Last of Us Online during this time, their vision crystalized, the gameplay got more refined and satisfying, and we were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed.
In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear. 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.
We are immensely proud of everyone at the studio that touched this project. The learnings and investments in technology from this game will carry into how we develop our projects and will be invaluable in the direction we are headed as a studio. 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.
Until then, we’re incredibly thankful to our community for your support throughout the years.

 

[Luffy123]

Good statement from them

Glad they admit themselves. Would rather have 2 new single player IPs then the whole studio have to be completely focused on factions

 

[Gods&Monsters]

They can't even salvage it for a small MP mode on the remastered version? That sounds unbelievable.

 

[JAHGamer]

idk if I should laugh .... or cry

 

[Nimrota]

At least it is finally over.

 

[Hezekiah]

What a waste of time. Sony just needs to buy a couple of multiplayer-specific studios.

 

[JAHGamer]

Hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet, WOW !!!

What kind of stupid reasoning is this? They didn't know live service games would require a lot of work to maintain? WTF !? Amazing foresight.....This is why I said Neil was a horrible pick for President of Naughty Dog. He should've stayed as a creative director and writer. I sincerely hopes he steps down or gets demoted for this

 

[Jim Ryan]

GAAS for the win!

 

[John Elden Ring]

So, this is the so much hyped TLOUS MP?

 

[Box]

They wasted 4 years in this crap with nothing to show, Fire Neil Druckmann already he has ruined Naughty Dog.

Bring back Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin

 

[Satoru]

@Yurinka wrong again.

 

[Bryank75]

We coulda had a great new single player game by now or at least next year, if they hadn't wasted all this time.

This GAAS fad chasing has been a disaster.

Exclusive single player games is what PlayStation fans want and expect, real exclusive ones of the best quality. Get back to it.

 

[Luffy123]

M

They can't even salvage it for a small MP mode on the remastered version? That sounds unbelievable.

They’ll likely add something to LOU3 as a smaller mode I’m guessing

 

[KiryuRealty]

So, this is TLOUS MP?

The REAL TLOUS MP is the friends we made along the way.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet, WOW !!!

What kind of stupid reasoning is this? They didn't know live service games would require a lot of work to maintain? WTF !? Amazing foresight.....This is why I said Neil was a horrible pick for President of Naughty Dog. He should've stayed as a creative director and writer. I sincerely hopes he steps down or gets demoted for this

They can salvage the assets, models even story for TLOU3 so it's not all lost.

 

[Satoru]

I just want to say that the live service bet Jim Ryan had is thankfully being killed. Too bad that we didn't get a fantastic multiplayer mode because that knucklehead wanted this to be a full on live service game and not just an included multiplayer offering.

Good fucking riddance.

 

[Luffy123]

Two new single players games though.


I can’t wait for Naughty Dogs space game. Feel like it’s going to be absolutely revolutionary

 

[Say1nMan]

"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."

AAA single player for the motherfucking win! Let's go!

 

[Nhomnhom]

Where is everyone that were calling out people that opposed GaaS pivot now?

Sony was delusional thinking this would ever work and seems like the leadership did not understood the strengths of Sony studios and what it takes to make successful GaaS.

 

[KiryuRealty]

They can salvage the assets, models even story for TLOU3 so it's not all lost.

Or another game. I remember reading back in the day that some locations in Uncharted 2 were completed versions of levels from the fantasy game they were working on that they scrapped and re-worked into Uncharted 1.