This studio may have flown a bit too close to the sun. Naughty Dog has shut down development of what it was calling The Last of Us Online.
After the successful release of The Last of Us Part II and helping work on a beloved live-action adaptation of one of its games, it felt like everything Naughty Dog touched turned to gold (let’s not talk about the Uncharted movie). And that led many to believe it was only a matter of time before The Last of Us multiplayer game became available. Unfortunately, the title just wasn’t meant to be.
Naughty Dog released a statement that laid out all the reasons the game wasn’t moving forward. “In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear,” the post said. “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.”
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This news will disappoint all the fans who were eager to play as a Seraphite and kick some WLF butt, but Naughty Dog didn’t leave its supporters totally hanging. “We are immensely proud of everyone at the studio that touched this project,” the statement went on to say. “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.”
The titles in development have yet to be officially announced, but there is still plenty of Naughty Dog content to look forward to, including a second season of HBO’s The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II Remastered.
