Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Online project has been cancelled

With some good news from Naughty Dog (The Last of Us Part II Remastered is set to launch in only a few weeks!), comes a bit of bad news from the studio.

Remember The Last of Us Online? Well we don’t totally remember the  details either… but apparently the standalone live service multiplayer experience was actively in production until very recently when Naughty Dog decided it was worth re-evaluating and as such they ultimately made the decision to stop development and drive a makeshift shiv into the game.  As posted this evening on their official blog and quoted below, the studio made it official.  But there’s a little sliver lining however — Naughty Dog revealed that they are hard at work on “more than one ambitious, brand new single player game”, one of which we have to assume is The Last of Us Part III.

Anyway read the note from the studio regarding the fate of The Last of Us Online below.

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.