Last of Us online was a highly anticipated venture from Naughty Dog Studios, as they had been working on it since pre-production of The Last of Us, Part 2.
However, the game could not be realized and had to be permanently discontinued. Some new aspects of the incident have recently come to light and confirm the enormous scope and hard work that went into the production of The last of us online.
The Last of Us Online had an immense amount of work
Recently it came to light that Last of Us online was much more than a side project for Naughty Dog, where hundreds of people were involved over a period of 4 yearswhich at some point during the filming of Last of Us Part 2.
During a recent podcast, Friends per Second, hosted by Ralph Panebianco, Lucy James, and Jake Baldino, certain aspects of the game’s development process were revealed that had not been previously discussed.
The podcasters’ guest was American journalist and author Jason Schreier, who talked about the enormous work that went into developing the game before production was inevitably halted.
He spoke about the four-year development process, in which a team of hundreds worked dedicatedly to make the game a reality. He said:
The Naughty Dog Factions game was in development for about 4 years, with a team of several hundred people. That’s an expensive undertaking for something that was a failure, and by that I mean that the cancellation of that project was not a bloodless undertaking; some heads rolled at Sony because of it.
This is a big surprise, as it was previously assumed that the game would not be that big and not much effort had been put into it.
Naughty Dog announced the end of Last of Us Online last year
The Naughty Dog announced the end of The Last of Us last year on December 14, 2023, via a notice on their official website detailing why production can no longer continue.
It mentions that during the course of the game’s production, the team had many insights that made them realize that the immense scope of this game would require the collaboration of everyone in the studio if it was ever to become a live service game.
This was something the studio could not support, as Naughty Dog is known for its narrative-driven single-player games and The Last of Us would require them to change the way the studio operates and make it a pure live service games studio.
Therefore, the decision was made to put the project on hold as it would have been a big change for Naughty Dog and they were not ready for such a big change at this point. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
