The Last Of Us 2 Factions Officially Canceled

The Last Of Us 2 Factions multiplayer game has been officially canceled, Naughty Dog announced earlier today on its official website. The news comes just weeks before the release of TLOU 2 Remastered on PS5. 

The lengthy blog post explained why Naughty had canned the project and confirmed that it had two single-player games currently in development. 

According to the studio, "To release and support The Last of Us Online we’d [they] have to put all our [their] studio resources behind supporting post-launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So, we [they] 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's enigmatic multiplayer project was originally scheduled to release way back in 2020 alongside The Last Of Us Part 2. However, the scope and size of the project grew significantly, and the studio decided to make it a standalone multiplayer title that many presumed would be a free-to-play live-service title in the veins of Fortnite or Call of Duty: Warzone.

At Summer Games Fest 2022, Naughty Dog's co-president Neil Druckmann confirmed that The Last Of Us 2 Factions was still being worked on and claimed it was as big as any of their single-player projects. He also shared a concept art for the game, which hinted at a battle-royal/extraction game mode.

Since then, the studio remained awfully quiet about the multiplayer project until a report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier suggested that the multiplayer game was being internally reassessed and that the studio had scaled down the team to work on other projects. Naughty Dog eventually delayed the project, stating that it needed more time. 

With the project canceled, some Factions fans may be disappointed with the news. However, many Naughty Dog fans may be relieved to see the studio return to its roots and continue making blockbuster single-player experiences that push the medium forward.