The Last of Us Online was cancelled in December 2023 as Naughty Dog shifted its focus to its next single-player game.
The Last of Us Online would have required Naughty Dog to become a full-time live service studio
Photo Credit: Sony/ Naughty Dog
Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has opened up on Naughty Dog's cancelled The Last of Us multiplayer game, Xbox launching its games on PlayStation, and more in a recent interview. Yoshida, who retired from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) last month, said The Last of Us Online was “great” but the studio could not have dedicated the required resources for a live service title without jeopardising its next project. Naughty Dog cancelled The Last of Us multiplayer title in December 2023 and instead chose to focus on its next single-player game.
Appearing on the Sacred Symbols+ podcast (via Push Square), Yoshida touched upon the decision to abandon development on the multiplayer title, saying he “played the game and it was great”.
“The idea for The Last of Us Online came from Naughty Dog and they really wanted to make it,” Yoshida said on the paywalled episode of the podcast published Wednesday. “But Bungie explained [to them] what it takes to make live service games, and 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.”
Yoshida's comments fall in line with reporting from May 2023 that claimed Destiny maker Bungie, a veteran developer of live service titles, had evaluated The Last of Us Online and raised concerns about the multiplayer project's ability to keep players engaged for long periods.
Following the assessment, Sony and Naughty Dog had scaled back the team working on the project. The report had come after Naughty Dog's announcement that the online game needed more time and confirmation that it was also working on a brand-new single-player experience.
Months later, in December 2023, Naughty Dog announced The Last of Us Online had been cancelled. The studio said it was excited by direction the game was headed but decided it couldn't support the live service title consistently beyond release without impacting development on future single-player projects.
“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,” Naughty Dog had said at the time.
In its announcement, the studio had also confirmed it was working on “more than one” brand new single player game. One of those was finally revealed to be Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet at The Game Awards 2024. The sci-fi action-adventure title does not yet have a release date, but the Sony-owned Studio said it had been working on it since 2020.
Separately, Yoshida also talked about Microsoft's decision to launch its first-party games on PS5. The former Sony executive, who once oversaw PlayStation's first-party outlay before heading its independent games initiative, said (via VGC) Xbox games coming to PS5 was a “win for PlayStation owners”.
“Looking at the install base of Xbox hardware, it's kind of natural to understand what they are doing, and it's pretty straightforward,” Yoshida said. According to him, it would be “impossible” to maintain first-party development on a minority platform, as game developers and studios wanted their titles to reach a bigger audience.
Xbox sales have been declining as Microsoft has pivoted to launching its first-party games on rival platforms. After announcing some of its games for PS5 and Nintendo Switch in early 2024, the Xbox parent has continued to release more of its exclusive titles on those consoles.
This year, the company has already confirmed that first-party titles Forza Horizon 5, Age of Mythology: Retold and Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition would launch on PS5 soon. Bethesda's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, that launched as an Xbox and PC exclusive in December 2024, is set to arrive on PS5 in 2025. And upcoming first-party title Doom: The Dark Ages will simultaneously release on PC, Xbox Series S/X and PS5 on May 13, 2025.
Yoshida, an industry legend and a PlayStation veteran of 31 years, retired from SIE last month. The executive had been serving president of PlayStation Studios until 2019, before being put in charge of Sony's independent developer initiative.
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