Naughty Dog cancelled The last of us The multiplayer game was reportedly in the middle of development before it was cancelled, a decision that reportedly caused an uproar at Sony.
That's according to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who shared some thoughts on the scrapped project on the Friends Per Second podcast (via GamesRadar). While Bungie's recent layoffs were discussed at first, as well as concerns about the Destiny 2 The studio's next extraction shooter MarathonSchreier soon began talking about Sony's current live service games, such as Concord.
The journalist called Sony's strategy of pushing live service games “trend chasing to the extreme” and “egregious,” especially when looking at online games that have “pivoted from single-player studios.”
Schreier stated that the Horizon Zero Dawn The online game, which was announced in 2022, is “still in development,” but he doesn't know if it will ever come out. He acknowledged that there are rare cases where live service games can be successful, such as Hell Divers 2.
On the subject of The last of us onlineSchreier said it was “in development for something like four years with a team of hundreds of people” before it was cancelled last December.
“It's an expensive proposition for something that was a failure,” he added. “And that project, which was cancelled, was not a fruitless endeavor. There were some heads rolling at Sony as a result of that.”
When Naughty Dog shared the announcement, it said it scrapped the project because it didn't want to “become solely a live service game studio” and would otherwise have to put all its resources into multiplayer projects.
“So, we had two paths ahead of us: become a purely live service game studio or continue to focus on the narrative-driven single-player games that have defined Naughty Dog's heritage,” the developer said at the time.
Schreier added that he thought Naughty Dog's decision to cancel The last of us online It was the right decision, as it wouldn't be beholden to live service games like other studios.
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