The Last Of Us new game officially cancelled by Naughty Dog

Well, it’s officially happened, Naughty Dog has cancelled its standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game.

Despite being primarily a single-player studio, Naughty Dog has a history of creating fun multiplayer games. I remember the multiplayer of 2009’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves being fun, which evolved into Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and made even better in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. This is why I was disappointed when the multiplayer modes were left out of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection as well as the Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection.

Check out The Last of Us Part II Remastered trailer below.

However, when Factions was released as part of The Last of Us in 2013 and the PS4’s Remastered version in 2014, Naughty Dog had arguably released its best multiplayer mode to date. Factions blended the storied world of The Last of Us, with an emphasis on surviving and scavenging for your clan, and it also required a well-oiled team to gain victory against opponents. So when Naughty Dog announced a couple of years ago that a standalone multiplayer game was in development alongside 2020’s The Last of Us Part II, fans were understandably hyped.

Unfortunately, reports began making the rounds that The Last of Us multiplayer game was in trouble and wasn't progressing as well as Naughty Dog had hoped. In May 2023, Naughty Dog announced that The Last of Us multiplayer game was delayed, despite not having an actual release date. Then we heard reports that the multiplayer game is “on ice” but “not completely cancelled”.

Sadly, Naughty Dog has now confirmed that The Last of Us multiplayer game has indeed been completely cancelled. As confirmed in a Naughty Dog blog post, the studio said: “We realise 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,” it continued. “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 on 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 crystalised, the gameplay got more refined and satisfying, and we were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed.”

Naughty Dog concluded: “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 the development of 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.”

To be fair to Naughty Dog, this decision does not come lightly and I think we can all agree that we wouldn't want its single-player games to suffer to which the studio also re-confirmed that other single-player projects are in the works. That being said, at least on a smaller scale, I’d love to see Factions return in The Last of Us Part III as well as a multiplayer mode in the next Uncharted.

As for the certain and immediate future, The Last of Us Part II Remastered will be released for PlayStation 5 on 19 January 2024.