The Last of Us Multiplayer Video Game Is Scrapped

The maker of the blockbuster online game The Final of Us, which was tailored into the hit HBO sequence by the identical title earlier this 12 months, introduced that it could cancel growth of its long-anticipated on-line multiplayer model of the sport.

“We understand a lot of you’ve got been anticipating information across the venture that we’ve been calling The Final of Us On-line,” the developer, Naughty Canine, stated within the announcement Thursday. “There’s no simple solution to say this: We’ve made the extremely tough determination to cease growth on that recreation.”

The studio stated the choice to drop the sport had come after it turned clear that it could have wanted to commit sources “for years to come back,” on the expense of future single-player video games.

Naughty Canine stated it was confronted with two choices: to “turn into a solely dwell service video games studio or proceed to deal with single-player narrative video games which have outlined Naughty Canine’s heritage.” It selected the second possibility.

Work on The Final of Us On-line began on the identical time Naughty Canine started growth on the single-player follow-up, The Final of Us Half II.

That recreation was launched in 2020.

Anxious followers of the online game obtained an inkling that The Final of Us On-line was in hassle after the developer shared an replace in Could.

“We’re extremely happy with the job our studio has carried out to date, however as growth has continued we’ve realized what’s finest for the sport is to provide it extra time,” the replace learn.

The Final of Us follows a bereaved father and a teenage woman because the unlikely pair traverses a postapocalyptic America ravaged by the worldwide outbreak of a zombifying fungal an infection.

The plot was critically acclaimed after the sport’s launch in 2013, and the 2023 tv adaptation starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey earned two dozen Emmy Award nominations.

The demise of The Final of Us On-line was a specific disappointment to followers of The Final of Us Factions, a restricted in-game on-line multiplayer expertise that was out there in sure releases of the Final of Us recreation.

Naughty Canine’s announcement drew a blended response from the gaming neighborhood on-line.

Some agreed that the studio was higher off specializing in new single-player video games, whereas others questioned the studio’s obvious lack of foresight.