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The cancellation of Naughty Dog’s highly anticipated multiplayer offering The Last of Us Online (colloquially known as Factions, originally planned as part of The Last of Us: Part II) is a situation we still haven’t quite recovered from in an industry seemingly plagued by bad news. For better or worse, more information about the canceled project has surfaced from a reputable source, and it seems unsurprising that some people at Sony have had to pay the price for the high-profile failure.
On the Friends Per Second podcast, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed some interesting details about the tragically canceled project (thanks, PSU). On X, user Dream Walker shared the corresponding clip, in which Schreier reveals that the multiplayer offering was in development for about four years, that it was an expensive project with a team of several hundred employees, and that heads had to roll at Sony due to the cancellation.
The more we learn about this mysterious situation, the crazier it gets. Hopefully one day the whole story will come to light and we can sleep peacefully at night knowing what was said to make it all go away.
