The Last of Us canceled multiplayer game cost more than Sony's money

We have a The Last of Us multiplayer cancelation update for August 2024. It looks like Naughty Dog's failed live service project cost Sony more than money!

The Last of Us canceled multiplayer game cost more than Sony's money
Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Kes Eylers-Stephenson

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When you collected The Last of Us Part II trophies you probably thought it was much easier than the first game thanks to the lack of multiplayer. That is because PlayStation Studios' Naughty Dog was going to spin it into a live-service game before it was eventually ditched. Well, now we have a The Last of Us multiplayer cancelation update for August 2024.

Sony staff lost jobs over Naughty Dog's failed live-service game

When The Last of Us multiplayer was officially canceled it all came as a huge surprise. Well, more and more details are trickling out about it, this time from the Friends Per Second podcast guest, Jason Schreier of Bloomberg (via X). This time, it's all about the fact that the cancelation costs more than money.
"Naughty Dog's Factions game was in development for something like four years with a team of hundreds. That's an expensive proposition for something that was a miss.

"A lot of these, and I mean that [Factions] project, getting canceled was not a bloodless endeavor," Schrier continued. "There were some heads rolling at Sony as a result of that one."

While there is no clarification on who, it's clear there was a real human cost to Factions' cancelation. Given the limited details about Naughty Dog's project and the information released on it, that aspect of the failure hasn't been spoken about. You have to imagine that a few overseers at Sony paid the price — possibly including the likes of former CEO Jim Ryan.
Officially, the game was canceled because Naughty Dog didn't realize the staff investment it would take to run a live-service title over a long period. I think it's becoming clear that Sony probably was the one that didn't understand the resource dedication for the team — that or Naughty Dog wouldn't let it go into the hands of a spin-off developer.

I find it crazy that the game developers at Naughty Dog would have been analyzing and researching other successful games as a service and not pick up on how much post-launch work was going into games like Warzone and Fortnite. Over four years of development with hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as having reviews with Bungie, it'd be a miracle for Naughty Dog not to have realized it.

Whoever the Sony and developer figures are that had hands on the project and let it go astray (along with a boatload of cash), they're long gone at this point. It'll be interesting to see what happens if other PlayStation Studios live service games fail to meet expectations because Sony doesn't seem to have much patience for failure.
I think it's been a morose cancelation. Everyone seems happy to have Naughty Dog working on two single-player games again, thanks to Factions' death. However, I think we can all agree that it was the most promising live-service game in development and I was excited to see how it pushed the TLOU series forward.

It's a shame, I'd have loved to have seen Factions get a shot at ranking amongst the best PS5 multiplayer games! Are you as disappointed as me? Well, get in the comments and let me know TrueTrophies survivors!
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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson
Editor-in-Chief Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and Sony news. He writes about PS5 games like The Witcher IV, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Kingdom Come Deliverance II using experience from years of PlayStation gaming. He also covers PS Plus news and some of the best PS5 games — Uncharted, God of War, and The Last of Us — before an evening swim.
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