Naughty Canine has introduced it has ceased manufacturing of The Final of Us On-line, its long-in-development multiplayer title set inside its common post-apocalyptic universe.
In a weblog publish, Naughty Canine explains it made the “extremely tough” determination to cancel the challenge after it apparently turned so massive that the studio realized it will must dedicate valuable assets to assist it post-launch for years to come back. When confronted with the truth of getting to grow to be a studio solely devoted to supporting a stay service sport or to proceed making single-player experiences, it selected the latter.
Right here’s Naughty Canine’s full assertion:
We notice lots of you’ve been anticipating information across the challenge that we’ve been calling The Final of Us On-line. There’s no simple option to say this: We’ve made the extremely tough determination to cease improvement on that sport.
We all know this information shall be robust for a lot of, particularly our devoted The Final of Us Factions group, who’ve been following our multiplayer ambitions ardently. We’re equally crushed on the studio as we have 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 crew has been in pre-production with this sport since we have been engaged on The Final of Us Half II – crafting an expertise we felt was distinctive and had great potential. Because the multiplayer crew 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 have been enthusiastic concerning the course during which we have been headed.
In ramping as much as full manufacturing, the large scope of our ambition turned clear. To launch and assist The Final of Us On-line we’d must put all our studio assets behind supporting publish 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: grow to be a solely stay service video games studio or proceed to deal with single-player narrative video games which have outlined Naughty Canine’s heritage.
We’re immensely pleased with everybody on the studio that touched this challenge. The learnings and investments in expertise from this sport will carry into how we develop our initiatives and shall be invaluable within the course we’re headed as a studio. We have now a couple of formidable, model new single participant sport that we’re engaged on right here at Naughty Canine, and we can not wait to share extra about what comes subsequent after we’re prepared.
Till then, we’re extremely grateful to our group to your assist all through the years.
<img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/websites/default/recordsdata/kinds/body_default/public/2023/05/26/c4da2713/tlou_factions_concept_art_2.jpg" alt="The Final Of Us Multiplayer Recreation" title="The Final Of Us Multiplayer Recreation" class="image-style-body-default" />
The Final of Us On-line idea artwork
The Final of Us On-line was initially supposed as a multiplayer mode hooked up to The Final of Us Half II, serving as a successor to the primary sport’s Factions mode. Nonetheless, as its scope expanded, Naughty Canine made the choice to make it a bigger standalone expertise in an effort to prioritize releasing the single-player marketing campaign of Half II, which arrived in 2020 to vital acclaim (whereas polarizing followers). The Final of Us On-line made its extra formal debut throughout Summer season Recreation Fest in 2022, although the studio solely revealed idea artwork and gave no launch window.
In January, Naughty Canine launched new idea artwork, promising to share extra particulars concerning the sport later this yr. In Might, the studio said it wanted extra time to work on the challenge amidst experiences of a troubled improvement. In October, 25 workers have been laid off throughout varied departments (principally QA), with experiences stating that TLOU On-line’s improvement was successfully “on ice.” Just a few weeks later, Sony delayed the title alongside an unknown variety of upcoming live-service titles.
This information serves as a giant blemish on an in any other case nice yr for the franchise. Final month, Sony introduced The Final of Us Half II Remastered, a modernized model of the 2020 sport launching subsequent month with new enhancements and additions, equivalent to its roguelite mode No Return. HBO’s The Final of Us collection premiered earlier this yr to vital acclaim and gained the Recreation Award for Finest Adaptation. The franchise even received its personal haunted home at Common Studios Halloween Horror Nights. Though the writing was on the wall for The Final of Us On-line’s demise, it’s unhappy to know that it gained’t come to fruition.
Supply: Recreation Informer
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