The Last Of Us fans heartbroken over unexpected cancellation

The Last of Us fans are heartbroken over a cancelled game that never got a chance to see the light of day.

Ever since the first game was released for the PlayStation 3 in 2013, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us has become one of the most popular properties for Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Time has flown by with The Last of Us over the years, but it feels quite baffling that we’ve had more remasters, ports and a remake than we have sequels. Speaking of which, give us The Last of Us Part III already, please.

There was going to be a multiplayer spin-off for The Last of Us, which was announced by Naughty Dog in 2018. It was intended to be an expansion for The Last of Us Part II before morphing into a standalone, live-service project.

Since that announcement, few details have been revealed about the multiplayer spin-off and in October 2023, Naughty Dog assured fans that the game wasn’t cancelled but was instead “put on ice”.

Sadly, however, just a couple of months after it was claimed the game was “put on ice”, The Last of Us multiplayer title was completely cancelled.

We’ll never know for sure whether it was the right move to cancel The Last of Us multiplayer game, but with the limited time I spent with the first game's online offering called ‘Factions’, it was fun and surprisingly, the servers are still active today.

With that in mind, Naughty Dog fans have recently discussed what could have been.

“What do you think really happened with The Last of Us Online?” asked a Reddit user.

When The Last of Us multiplayer game was cancelled, Naughty Dog released the following statement: “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.”

It concluded: “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."

It’s quite a run-of-the-mill statement and doesn't provide any genuine detail on how the project was progressing behind closed doors.

“I think they couldn't figure out a compelling gameplay loop. They likely had a hugely ambitious view of the game that evolved from the old game into an extraction game,” suggested Travic3.

“The game would’ve been a full-time job for Naughty Dog to keep making content for, like GTA Online,” said RinoTheBouncer. “It has proven to be too costly for it to maintain any real profit over a long period, and the studio’s name will forever be tied to TLOU, unable to create anything new. Thank God it was cancelled.”

We’ll probably never see another spin-off game or mode for the series (I hope I’m wrong), but at this point, I just want The Last of Us Part III to be announced.