The storm clouds are gathering over Naughty Dog’s overblown project, and there’s simply no stopping Sony from continuing to push the live service model for each of its major franchises.

The first The Last of Us back in 2013 (let’s not count the two re-releases since then…) had a Factions multiplayer mode as standard. After that, The Last of Us Part II didn’t get it on PlayStation 4 in 2020 (when will there be a PlayStation 5 version?), because Naughty Dog skipped it, saying that the concept had gotten too big and we’d have to be patient to learn more about it.

Yes, except that three years have passed and The Last of Us: Factions is nowhere to be found (that’s what we’re calling the project because it doesn’t have an official name and it seems logical at the moment). At last year’s Summer Game Fest, along with the concept art, Naughty Dog confirmed that it would be a standalone experience and not just an update to The Last of Us Part II. Then came the cutbacks at Naughty Dog and rumours that The Last of Us: Factions had been cancelled.

Push Square discovered that Vinit Agarwal, the project’s director, celebrated the completion of Super Mario Bros. Wonder on Twitter. He died over three hundred times during the 100% completion and now he can live on with this tweet and yes, he is still working on the game. This is exactly the game he had in mind.

But after all this, how much has the concept changed since 2020? If there are fewer people working at Naughty Dog, it’s almost certain that the staff for The Last of Us: Factions has been thinned out. They’re concentrating on the third instalment (Sony is pushing for blockbusters, and the franchise can be called a blockbuster), and HBO has also ordered a sequel…

But what can we expect?

Source: GameRant