Last of Us Online Was 80% Done When Naughty Dog Canceled It

A Near-Complete Project, Cut Late

Last of Us Online was "about 80 percent" complete when Naughty Dog canceled it, according to the game’s director, Vinit Agarwal. He says he learned the news only a day before the public did, ending a project he’d worked on for "seven years." That snap of finality, coming so late and so close to the finish line, helps explain why fans heard rumblings of progress for so long before the studio finally pulled the plug nearly three years ago.

Agarwal shared the update during a long interview with Lance E. Lee, speaking candidly about his time at Naughty Dog and what happened to the multiplayer spin on the studio’s prestige franchise. He’s since left for Japan to found a new studio, but he remains adamant the multiplayer game could have been "really big" if it had shipped.

Why Sony Pivoted—Then Backed Off

Context matters here. Agarwal points to Sony’s live-service push that gathered steam in 2020, when lockdowns made online games a lifeline for staying connected. That strategy put extra wind behind multiplayer ideas across PlayStation studios, including Naughty Dog’s effort. As pandemic restrictions eased and player behavior shifted, Sony walked back some of that investment, creating a tougher path for projects that didn’t neatly fit the company’s rebalanced priorities.

Internal resources were the other pressure point. Big, ongoing-service games require sustained support, and Naughty Dog is best known for top-tier single-player work. Balancing the two, according to Agarwal, forced a choice that ultimately favored the studio’s core identity. He describes a gutting outcome for the team that had been building the online experience for years.

“Pick One”: Inside the Call That Killed It

The decisive moment came down to which game would define Naughty Dog’s next stretch: the multiplayer offshoot, or the next project directed by studio president Neil Druckmann. That project is the upcoming PS5 title Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which the studio publicly positioned as its next major single-player release.