Even before The Last of Us Part III was expected to drop, Naughty Dog fans thought that the studio was working on an update to The Last of Us: Factions which would be an online version of TLOU.
Plans were eventually cancelled for TLOU Online, but as it turns out, the studio did want to make the game, but they had to sacrifice it in order to make their new IP, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
This was confirmed by former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida who told Sacred Symbols+ (via PushSquare):
“The idea for The Last of Us Online came from Naughty Dog and they really wanted to make it… But [Destiny developer Bungie] explained [to them] what it takes to make live service games, and Naughty Dog realised, ‘Oops, we can’t do that! If we do it, we can’t make Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.’ So that was a lack of foresight.”
If anything Yoshida said that he had played the game, and ‘it was great.’ We don’t know exactly what would have been in TLOU Online, but fans were expecting an upgraded version of Factions where players would get put in matches, and each playable character had abilities that were a breakdown of Ellie’s and Abby’s from The Last of Us Part II.
Though live service games were profitable back then, it does seem like the concept is starting to sour. While Overwatch and Fortnite were able to thrive with live-service, titles like MultiVersus and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League just lost massive amounts of money.
It’s kind of wild how Marvel Rivals was able to push through it all.
For now, Naughty Dog is looking forward to the release of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet which releases for PS5 sometime later this year.
