The Final of Us On-line is lifeless. Naughty Canine introduced at present that the multiplayer spin-off of the hit sequence is now not in improvement, citing considerations about managing ongoing content material for a live-service recreation whereas nonetheless making an attempt to supply the single-player blockbusters the PlayStation studio is legendary for.
“We notice lots of you’ve gotten been anticipating information across the challenge that we’ve been calling The Final of Us On-line,” Naughty Canine wrote in a December 14 replace. “There’s no simple solution to say this: We’ve made the extremely tough determination to cease improvement on that recreation.”
The studio mentioned that as manufacturing on the challenge ramped up, it grew to become clear that “we’d need to put all our studio sources behind supporting put up launch content material for years to come back, severely impacting improvement on future single-player video games.” The alternatives had been apparently between turning into a “solely live-service video games studio” within the mildew of recent day Bungie, which makes Future 2, or “proceed to deal with single-player narrative video games which have outlined Naughty Canine’s heritage.”
The Final Of Us On-line, which many many followers beforehand known as Factions after the multiplayer mode from the unique 2013 PlayStation 3 recreation, was first introduced throughout Summer time Sport Fest 2022. The spin-off was billed because the studio’s “largest on-line expertise” ever, and as giant as any of its single-player video games.
However Naughty Canine by no means confirmed the sport past imprecise statements and idea artwork. Then in Might of this yr, Bloomberg reported that the manufacturing staff on the sport had be scaled again following destructive suggestions from an inside evaluation by Bungie, which Sony acquired final yr. On the time, the studio posted a press release on Twitter saying that whereas issues had been progressing properly, the sport required extra time. By October, nevertheless, Kotaku reported that the challenge had been “placed on ice” amid some inside reshuffling and dozens of contracted builders being laid off.
The Final of Us On-line was considered one of a lot of new multiplayer tasks in improvement throughout Sony’s studios because the PlayStation 5 maker invested in an enormous shift towards extra live-service video games. In November, Sony revealed throughout an earnings name that half of the roughly dozen on-line video games it was engaged on can be delayed previous 2025.
Within the meantime, Naughty Canine continues to be engaged on a “brand-new single-player recreation” it plans to disclose someday sooner or later.
Right here’s Naughty Canine’s full weblog put up:
We notice lots of you’ve gotten been anticipating information across the challenge that we’ve been calling The Final of Us On-line. There’s no simple solution to say this: We’ve made the extremely tough determination to cease improvement on that recreation.
We all know this information will likely be robust for a lot of, particularly our devoted The Final of Us Factions neighborhood, who’ve been following our multiplayer ambitions ardently. We’re equally crushed on the studio as we had been wanting ahead to placing it in your fingers. We wished to share with you some background of how we got here to this determination.
The multiplayer staff has been in pre-production with this recreation since we had been engaged on The Final of Us Half II – crafting an expertise we felt was distinctive and had large potential. Because the multiplayer staff iterated on their idea for The Final of Us On-line throughout this time, their imaginative and prescient crystalized, the gameplay received extra refined and satisfying, and we had been enthusiastic in regards to the path during which we had been headed.
In ramping as much as full manufacturing, the huge scope of our ambition grew to become clear. To launch and help The Final of Us On-line we’d need to put all our studio sources behind supporting put up launch content material for years to come back, severely impacting improvement on future single-player video games. So, we had two paths in entrance of us: turn into a solely reside service video games studio or proceed to deal with single-player narrative video games which have outlined Naughty Canine’s heritage.
We’re immensely happy with everybody on the studio that touched this challenge. The learnings and investments in expertise from this recreation will carry into how we develop our tasks and will likely be invaluable within the path we’re headed as a studio. Now we have multiple bold, model new single participant recreation that we’re engaged on right here at Naughty Canine, and we can’t wait to share extra about what comes subsequent after we’re prepared.
Till then, we’re extremely grateful to our neighborhood to your help all through the years.