Naughty Dog cancels The Last of Us Online, the Factions-style multiplayer mode of TLoU 2

You know what they say about the river flowing. Rumors about the status of The Last of Us 2′s multiplayer have been swirling for some time now. While we held out hope at the time, the recent announcement of The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered (scheduled for release on January 19, 2024) made us suspect that the developer might have finally thrown in the towel on its online ambitions. And so it has. Naughty Dog has released a statement confirming the death of the project.

In addition to revealing the cancellation of this mode, Naughty Dog’s blog post also talks about a new single-player game: “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.”

“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.”