You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here
PlayStation has scrapped a tonne of live-service projects, including Concord after two weeks of release. However, no live-service cancellation hurts as much as Naughty Dog’s Last of Us Online project, based on the brilliant combat of Last of Us Part 2.
In a recent interview, ex-PlayStation Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida revealed that Naughty Dog’s multiplayer game was actually really “great”, but it’s production took too much focus away from its single-player development.
Last of Us Online wasn’t bad
In an interview on Sacred Symbols+, via Push Square, Yoshida revealed that he had played the Last of Us Online spin-off multiple times. In his experience, the game itself was actually “great”, and the team was very invested in its development.
However, after PlayStation’s acquisition of Destiny 2 developer Bungie, the studio was informed how much effort it takes to support a live-service game.
“The idea for The Last of Us Online came from Naughty Dog and they really wanted to make it,” Yoshida revealed. “But Bungie explained [to them] what it takes to make live service games.”
The PlayStation executive explained that this realisation meant that Naughty Dog wouldn’t be able to create the project it really wanted to: the just-revealed sci-fi adventure, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
“Naughty Dog realised, ‘Oops, we can’t do that! If we do it, we can’t make Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.’ So that was a lack of foresight,” the ex-PlayStation boss revealed.
Naughty Dog’s development on The Last of Us Online was spread over a number of years, and it’s cancellation was a shock to many fans. When the title was announced, it was expected to be a basic multiplayer adaptation of the single-player game’s combat, but it seems that Naughty Dog was planning to go a lot bigger than expected with the multiplayer title.
About the Author
