Sony is significantly reducing development of The Last of Us Multiplayer for PS5, says the report

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Update: Well, okay. Naughty Dog’s statement came as a bit of a surprise earlier today, but it appears to have been pre-empting a report from Bloomberg that actually suggested the project was in trouble. Highly reliable reporter Jason Schreier cites four sources familiar with the release, and claims that Sony has “slowed development” on the title “as creators reassess its quality and long-term viability”.

Schreier goes on to report the project’s downsizing during the last evaluation, which we know also led to the closure of PixelOpus and the possible cancellation of the first Deviation Games. “A small group remains on the project while the company re-evaluates direction,” Shrair continues with his report. “While the game has not been canceled, many of its developers have been moved on to other projects.” Presumably, that includes the company’s new single-player title.

In the wake of the Bloomberg report, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb commented: “All I’ve heard about this game is that it looked a lot like the studio’s first direct-service game, and that Naughty Dog wanted to do things their way, which probably didn’t bode well for the factions.” .

The Last of Us Factions was expected to be one of Sony’s main live-service titles, a business model the Japanese giant was so obsessed with that it bought Bungie to help accelerate its efforts. But according to Schreier, the Destiny developer wasn’t impressed with what Naughty Dog was doing. “Bungie has raised questions about the ability of The Last of Us multiplayer project to keep players engaged for an extended period of time, which has led to a re-evaluation,” the Bloomberg article claims.

When Sony bought Bungie, it said it would use the studio to create a center of excellence for live service, and it’s probably safe to assume that it was this new division that led to all of the current turmoil happening within PS Studios. Of course, the skeptics among you will probably be right to point out that PlayStation has been doing great when it’s focused on single-player games, so we’ll need to wait and see how it proves to be the ship moving forward.

Original article: Well, despite being officially announced nearly four years ago, it looks like The Last of Us Factions, the indie multiplayer game from Naughty Dog, is still nowhere near release. Many wondered why the title was absent from this week’s PS Expo, especially after series creator Neil Druckmann promised we’d learn a lot more about the project this year. But the studio said in a statement that it is “proud of the work our studio has done so far […] We realized what was best for the game was to give it more time.” There is no word on when and where we will learn more.

The statement continues: “Our team will continue to work on the project, as well as our other games in development, including a brand new single-player experience. We look forward to sharing more soon. We are grateful to our amazing community for your support – thank you for your passion with our games, it continues to drive us.”

pic.twitter.com/DOeO8ZHSlh — Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) May 26, 2023

And that’s it!

There was some hope that the title might appear during Summer Game Fest, but it’s clearly not ready for prime time. This is obviously all worrisome, because outside of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Helldivers 2, all Sony had to show during the disappointing PS presentation were two CG trailers. Insiders keep claiming that there’s a lot being kept secret behind the scenes, but when it comes to The Last of Us factions, we’d recommend joining in, because it seems like it’s still a long way off.

[source twitter.com]

A true PlayStation veteran, Sammy’s has covered the PS gaming world for years, with an impressive number of awards to prove it. He also likes tennis games more than you.

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