It’s a dark day for The Last of Us Online. And of course, for every single fan who was looking forward to the project. The Last of Us Online, or as some called it, Factions, was a very special game. The Last of Us fans everywhere were eagerly waiting to see where the developer, Naughty Dog, would take the game. After all, they had said multiple times that it would have some heavy story elements that would tie into the main title. But after a bunch of developmental hiccups, this game’s journey came to an end.

Naughty Dog recently confirmed that they were halting the development of TLOU online to focus on Single Player Narrative games, rather than becoming a live service games studio. They cited the fact that Single Player Narratives is what forms their heritage. And from that point of view, it makes sense when you think not only about the TLOU games but even their other majorly successful franchises, like Uncharted. But this doesn’t change the fact that countless eager fans will take this hard, and even see it as a loss. After all, this game was reportedly in pre-production even when they were working on TLOU 2.

The Last of Us Online enjoyed a good amount of fanfare. And while fans awaited news on its future, there was an air of excitement in speculating Naughty Dog’s future projects with the developer reportedly working on an unnamed project which, while many believe maybe TLOU 3, many others believed was their multiplayer project. Either way, it would have been a win for fans, but considering the multiplayer project was supposed to be a long time coming, this one particularly stings. So one must wonder: What made Naughty Dog abandon this game?

The Last of Us Online would have given this franchise a new direction

From the very first moment the developers introduced players to Joel and Ellie, players had an idea of what to expect from this franchise. A dystopia. A game that would always put its characters and their relationships at its center. And when The Last of Us Part 2 launched, this was proven right. Naughty Dog had indeed created a franchise where characters were front and center. This all rounds up to one fact: character-driven stories are what fans expect from the Last of Us franchise.

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This online-focused game was said to have some story elements, but there’s no way it would be anywhere close to the original games. Hence, The Last of Us Online would have marked a new era for this franchise. Maybe they would have introduced some new characters as leaders of some groups that players interacted with. And maybe they would have then featured those characters in future games, but it would not have mattered much.

Development problems

Naughty Dog is basically a developer that excels at developing big-budget single-player experiences. And those blockbusters games make players feel like action heroes. And yes, their games often had multiplayer modes in them, but were not the main focus. Hence, it might have been a big thing for them when they took charge of this massive project. And the number of people they laid off proves that they had to hire a lot of outside help for this project too. This means that even though they were interested in doing it, they were not prepared for such a change in their way of making games.

Back in May, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier had even suggested that the game was in trouble. Apparently, even Bungie intervened in the development of The Last of Us Online. They suggested that it was not addictive enough for gamers. They asked the developers to fix this game to make it more appealing to fans so that they would come back again and again.

That’s when Sony also started rethinking the potential of this title. They started suggesting that developers who are working on The Last of Online should be assigned some other projects. They did this because they had half expected this game to be canceled in the near future. As a result of this, the developer count of The Last of Us online fell significantly. But Naughty Dog was optimistic in their X posts.

Recently, a monetization expert who previously worked on Fortnite was also fired from Naughty Dog. But Naughty Dog refused to accept that they had canceled The Last of Us Online. But now, that time is here, and they have proven that every studio can fail now and then. There can be many reasons for their failure. Bad management, lack of experience, and sometimes disinterest in a project. No one would ever know what exactly happened in the case of Naughty Dog and the last of us online, though.

Where should they go next?

When trying to do damage control for The Last of Us Online, one of Naughty Dog’s X posts mentioned a new IP. They called it a “Brand New Single-Player Experience.” It is being suggested that it’s a new story-driven game that Neil Druckmann is directing. Rumors also suggest that this game would have story elements in parallel with the likes of The Last of Us and its sequel. This means fans can expect some heavy themes from this game’s story.

The Last of Us Part III Leaked – Ellie Is Set to Make a Comeback in the Blockbuster PlayStation Franchise From Naughty Dog

The studio is reportedly hard at work on the next single-player installment in the Last of Us franchise. While there’s no confirmation of where they will take this story in The Last of Us 3, it has been suggested that they are planning to leave Ellie and Abby behind for this installment. It would be a good thing too; Neil Druckmann has made Ellie suffer enough for one lifetime.

Let’s see where this franchise and this studio go next. One thing is for sure: fans will be waiting a long time for any reveal or confirmation.

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