Naughty Canine introduced Thursday that it’s canceled the multiplayer recreation it was constructing in The Final of Us universe.
The studio says it has been in pre-production on The Final of Us On-line even whereas engaged on The Final of Us Half II. “We were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed,” based on a weblog submit in regards to the information.
Nonetheless, “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,” Naughty Canine says. “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.”
Clearly, Naughty Canine is selecting the latter path — it additionally says it has “more than one” large new single-player title within the works.
The Final of Us On-line growth already appeared to be in some hassle, as Naughty Canine introduced a delay to the sport in Might shortly after Bloomberg reported that Sony was re-evaluating the sport’s course. (In that very same delay announcement, Naughty Canine additionally revealed it was engaged on a “brand-new single player experience.”) In Kotaku’s October report about Naughty Canine shedding some contractors, the publication stated that The Final of Us’ On-line was “basically on ice.”
The cancellation of The Final of Us On-line provides to Sony’s broader pushback of its reside service ambitions. As a substitute of releasing 12 reside service video games by March 2026, it now solely plans to launch six.
Sony and Naughty Canine’s The Final of Us Half II Remastered might be launched on January nineteenth, 2024. The second season of the hit HBO present is about to debut in 2025.