Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online. A statement regarding this decision is available via the company’s official website.
To start with, Naughty Dog acknowledges that many fans, especially the The Last of Us Factions community, would be upset at hearing this news. However, it also provided a bit of an explanation. While progress on the game had been good, the team realized that in order for them to make The Last of Us Online according to their vision for the game, they would have to put literally the entire studio’s resources behind maintaining and supporting the game after it launches. That means Naughty Dog would be unable to work on or release single-player games in the future.
Naughty Dog reiterated that if they decided to continue going forth with The Last of Us Online, that project would then be literally the only thing the studio could work on. So, instead, it chose to focus on single-player narrative games. The Sony developer stated that these types of narrative games are what have defined the studio. Indeed, Naughty Dog’s previous titles have all focused on the single-player experience. Some of the games that define the studio include the Crash Bandicoot series, Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, and, of course, The Last of Us.
At the end of the statement, Naughty Dog thanked fans for their support. It also revealed that it has more than one single-player game in development and looks forward to sharing them with the community.
