What Was Said
The Last of Us Online was "very close to done" and "doing really well internally" before Naughty Dog canceled it, according to new reporting from GameSpot. Those phrases paint a clearer picture of a multiplayer project that wasn’t scrapped for lack of progress or quality, but despite them.
That internal momentum makes the decision sting for fans who waited years for the studio’s follow-up to the beloved Factions mode. It also reframes the narrative around the game’s fate: this wasn’t a prototype quietly shelved. It was a near-finished production that never got a public release.
How We Got Here
Naughty Dog first built its multiplayer chops with Factions in the original The Last of Us, a tense mode that earned a steady audience. During The Last of Us Part II’s development, the studio split multiplayer into its own project rather than shipping it alongside the 2020 sequel. In mid-2022, the team shared concept art and confirmed a standalone vision set in the series’ universe.
Momentum slowed in 2023. In May, the studio said it needed more time after a review of the project’s direction. Bloomberg reported that Bungie, brought in by PlayStation to assess live-service efforts, raised concerns about long-term engagement. By December 2023, Naughty Dog announced it had canceled The Last of Us Online and would refocus on single-player games.
At the time, the studio explained that supporting a live-service title at the scale it envisioned would demand years of post-launch resources and could impact its ability to make narrative-driven projects. That context helps explain the call, even if hearing the game was nearly finished makes the outcome tougher to swallow.