Many fans are wondering if The Last of Us multiplayer is canceled. The Last of Us Part 2 launched without Factions, and Naughty Dog promised it would be developing the mode as a standalone title. In the three years since, we didn’t receive any info about it other than it’s still in development. However, the studio finally broke silence recently to give some troubling news.
Is The Last of Us 2 Factions multiplayer standalone delayed or canceled?
The Last of Us standalone multiplayer title is still in development officially. However, despite never setting a release date, Naughty Dog has stated that it’s been internally delayed. On May 26, 2023, the studio sent out a message on its official Twitter:
The Last of Us Fans,
We know many of you have been looking forward to hearing more about our The Last of Us multiplayer game. We’re incredibly proud of the job our studio has done thus far, but as development has continued, we’ve realized what is best for the game is to give it more time.
Our team will continue to work on the project, as well as our other games in development, including a brand new single-player experience; we look forward to sharing more soon.
We’re grateful to our fantastic community for your support – thank you for your passion for our games, it continues to drive us.
Naughty Dog Twitter
Unfortunately, aside from telling us that Naughty Dog is a big fan of run-on sentences, this statement didn’t give much away. The Last of Us standalone multiplayer has been in development for around three years, so the studio might be trying to get ahead of any bad news. Coincidentally, on the same day, Bloomberg put out a report stating that Sony has opted to slow down development on The Last of Us multiplayer and that many of the developers working on the game had been reassigned.
Bloomberg stated that work on the project had been scaled back after Sony asked Bungie to evaluate games across its first-party studios. Allegedly, in its assessment, Bungie raised questions about The Last of Us multiplayer’s long-term viability. Unfortunately, it’s possible that the game might be a casualty of Sony’s desire to concentrate on live service titles.
Despite the success of Sony’s single-player games, there were hardly any to be seen in the PlayStation Showcase. Instead, most of the first-party titles shown were multiplayer or live service-focused. This, along with rumors that several reveals were withheld from the showcase, has us wondering what’s happening.
