The Last of Us Online ‘Was Great,’ but Naughty Dog Canceled It After ‘Bungie Explained What It Takes to Make Live Service Games,’ Ex-PlayStation Exec Says

Former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Shuhei Yoshida has commented on Naughty Dog’s canceled The Last of Us Online, saying that he played it and thought it was “great.”

Naughty Dog stopped development on The Last of Us Online in December 2023, saying it would have needed to put all its resources into post-launch content for years to come — an approach that would have severely impacted its ability to develop future single-player games.

“We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online,” Naughty Dog said at the time. “There’s no easy way to say this: we’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.

“The multiplayer team has been in pre-production with this game since we were working on The Last of Us Part II — crafting an experience we felt was unique and had tremendous potential.

“As the multiplayer team iterated on their concept for The Last of Us Online during this time, their vision crystalized, the gameplay got more refined and satisfying, and we were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed.

“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 went on to announce single-player adventure Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet at The Game Awards 2024, its first new franchise in over a decade.

Now, speaking to Sacred Symbols+ (via Push Square), Shuhei Yoshida touched on the internal decision-making that led to The Last of Us Online’s cancelation, saying feedback from Destiny developer Bungie, which Sony had acquired, helped to convince Naughty Dog to scrap the game.

“The idea for The Last of Us Online came from Naughty Dog and they really wanted to make it,” Yoshida said. “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.”

This tallies with prior reports that indicated Naughty Dog had scaled back development of The Last of Us Online due to an internal review from Bungie. In October 2023, Naughty Dog reportedly suffered a round of layoffs and that the multiplayer project was “put on ice.”

The cancelation of The Last of Us Online came as part of a sweeping pull back from live service at Sony Interactive Entertainment following a huge internal push to make more of these types of games.

While Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 was a breakout hit, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony’s other live service games were either canceled or suffered disastrous launches.

Sony’s live service hero shooter Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting just a couple of weeks before it was brought offline amid eye-wateringly low player numbers. Sony later decided to kill the game entirely and shut its developer.

Concord’s initial development deal was around $200 million according to a report by Kotaku. It said the $200 million was not enough to fund Concord’s entire development, nor did it include the purchase of the Concord IP rights or Firewalk Studios itself.

And just last month, Sony canceled two unannounced live service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend.

In a prior interview, Yoshida, who was President of SIE Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment from 2008 to 2019, said he would have tried to resist Sony’s controversial live service video game push and that Sony always knew its investment in live service games was risky.

Now, speaking to Sacred Symbols+, Yoshida said that as far as he was aware, no first-party PlayStation Studio was forced to make a live service game. Rather they saw an opportunity to successfully pitch a live service game given Sony’s video game strategy.

“From my experience, when studios see the company has a big initiative, [they realise] riding on that gives them a better chance of getting a project approved and supported,” Yoshida said.

“It’s not like [current PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst] is telling teams they need to make live service games, it’s likely mutual.”

The upshot of Sony’s live service push and pull is hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, widespread layoffs, studio closures, and years of work that will never see the light of day. Developers face enormous gaps in their CVs with nothing to show for it, and PlayStation 5 looks set for a light period for first-party games.

Still, there are a number of PlayStation Studios live service games Sony has yet to cancel, including Guerrilla’s multiplayer Horizon project, Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon, and the multiplayer heist game Fairgames.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].