Officially, all we know is that the studio needs more time, but there’s more to hear regarding the multiplayer spinoff, which for lack of a better idea (and official name…), we’re calling The Last of Us: Factions.

Let’s start with what Naughty Dog confirmed on Twitter in a statement. In short: more time is needed for The Last of Us multiplayer project, and a new single-player experience is in development: “The Last of Us fans, we know many of you have been looking forward to hearing more about our The Last of Us multiplayer game. We’re incredibly proud of the job our studio has done thus far, but as development has continued, we’ve realized what is best for the game is to give it more time. Our team will continue to work on the project and our other games in development, including a brand-new single-player experience; we look forward to sharing more soon. We’re grateful to our fantastic community for your support. Thank you for your passion for our games; it continues to drive us.”

In layman’s terms, you can’t help but wonder what the hell the studio is doing because The Last of Us Part II has been out for almost THREE YEARS, and the reason it didn’t have a Factions mode was that Naughty Dog had a bigger vision for it. The studio may have since shelved that because we’re starting to hear other, almost worrying, rumors about it, as Jason Schreier, writing for Bloomberg, has revealed more.

Schreier has written that Bungie, part of PlayStation Studios (who have already proven themselves in live service games with two Destiny titles and are now working on Marathon, which we wrote about), have looked at Naughty Dog’s project. They assess that the concept would not have engaged players long-term, which is vital for a live service game. Because of it, the project has been cut down (fewer people are working on it) but has not been canceled.

The Last of Us is becoming a successful and shameful IP for Sony…

Source: Gematsu, WCCFTech