New details about what happened to The Last of Us multiplayer game that never was have emerged, thanks to a former Naughty Dog developer who worked on it.
Speaking to podcaster Lance E. Lee (via Kotaku), developer Vinit Agarwal said that the canceled Last of Us live-service title was almost at “80% completion,” adding that the game was “very, very close to done.” Agarwal, who had worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and The Last of Us Part 2, was the game director for this multiplayer game.
According to Agarwal, Sony had invested in the project after an uptick in online gaming in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that The Last of Us online title “made a lot of progress, and the game was doing really, really well internally.” Studio head and The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann even called the game Naughty Dog’s “most ambitious project” back in January 2023.
It’s interesting to hear that the Last of Us multiplayer game was so close to completion. It’s always a bit disappointing when promising projects don’t make it to release, especially when there’s so much excitement around them. Thanks for sharing these insights!