A lot of fans thought that the official reveal would come after the recent announcement of the Part II remaster, but Naughty Dog has instead announced that they have made the difficult decision not to release a multiplayer mode for TLOU Part II. Their official post said:

“… In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear. To release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage”

Seeing that it does take a lot of work to keep a multiplayer game going (i.e., Fortnite, Overwatch, Valorant), it does make sense that Naughty Dog would have had to sacrifice a huge chunk of their entire development team to be able to just focus on the multiplayer element of the game.

If anything, The Last of Us franchise has more of shined when it comes to its deeply personal story, and it could end up being a tad lackluster for a multiplayer option that is more focused on unique characters and abilities.

Though TLOU Online didn’t push through, the Remastered version does have a new roguelike game mode that allows players to use different characters from the game with their kits enhanced to fit specific abilities. This was probably a leftover from the multiplayer version, but that’s just a guess on my part.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered is set to launch for the PS5 on Jan. 19, 2024.