Alex Levine May 28th, 2023 - 8:06 PM
It’s been a while since we last heard about The Last of Us multiplayer project. Initially intended to be a part of The Last of Us: Part II’s 2020 release, the mode became its own separate IP and further development became a necessity. However, this new tidbit of information does not offer a whole lot of good news about the project. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Naughty Dog has scaled down the development team for the project and had its progress slowed significantly. Schreier also mentions that after they reached out to Naughty Dog for comment on this situation, they put out their own Twitter post with the official statement of the project being delayed.
NEW: Naughty Dog has significantly scaled down the team on its Last of Us multiplayer project, sources say, as it reassesses the game. Following Bloomberg’s requests for comment, the company put out a Twitter statement today saying the game was delayed. https://t.co/mHluHOez5O
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 26, 2023
It’s important to note here that Schreier points out that the project has not been canceled. However, with the team being slimmed down, and Naughty Dog putting those developers on other projects, it doesn’t exactly paint a positive picture for the whole situation. A more intriguing aspect to this whole story is that Schreier also states that Bungie, who was acquired by Sony last year, apparently looked into and evaluated Naughty Dog’s multiplayer IP and gave them some input. The biggest takeaway that both developers took was that the latter needed to be being able to keep players engaged for a prolonged period, something that Bungie questioned for the The Last of Us multiplayer IP.
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) May 26, 2023
As you can see in the statement above, Naughty Dog mentions the aforementioned multiplayer project being delayed and that the best decision was for them to “give it more time.” Interestingly, they also mentioned a “brand new single-player experience” which could be that unannounced IP that was teased back in March, which in turn could very well be The Last of Us: Part III. In short, only Naughty Dog really knows what’s going to happen next, and hopefully they’ll make their upcoming plans known to us all in the foreseeable future.
