The cancelation of The Last of Us Factions, was really surprising, but it turns out it was the best possible outcome. Some details from a previous PlayStation executive help explain why the cancelation happened.
Former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida recently shared some insights with Eurogamer about why development on Factions was stopped. He confirmed that the game was well into development and was considered “great” by those who had the chance to play it. However, once it became clear what goes into live-service games, Naughty Dog decided it would be better to cancel it.
Naughty Dog realized they weren’t suited for creating a live-service game. They initially led the project but worked with Bungie, the team behind Destiny, to help them out. Bungie’s involvement showed how tough it is to keep players engaged in these games over a long period.
Bungie informed Naughty Dog that what the team had was not enough for a few weeks of gameplay on live service. A high-quality live service game would take away a lot of staff. That meant fewer members to develop other games. Yoshida said, “Naughty Dog realized, ‘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.”
In the end, Naughty Dog felt that the challenges were too great to overcome. It was a tough choice between continuing with the online game or developing their new single-player title, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The team chose to focus on the single-player game, which in turn made sure the studio wouldn’t have to focus solely on live-service games.
Naughty Dog wouldn’t hand development over to another studio because the team needed Factions to keep the quality players expect from The Last of Us. Another team didn’t have the experience to keep that quality, so it was dropped altogether.
To be honest, it would just be nice if Factions were in multiplayer mode instead of a live service game. It seems the focus on live service is never-ending, but Sony seems to have a different mindset today. After the failure of Concord, Sony seems less likely to force live service.
Initially, the company aimed to launch over 10 live-service titles by March 2026, but it has now reduced those goals. This may mean that Sony could go back to projects like Factions and make it a single-player game or regular multiplayer mode.
It is interesting that Yoshida suggested that Naughty Dog made its own decision rather than being pressured by Sony’s leadership. Although Sony had a big push for live-service games, it seems like there wasn’t a strict rule for its first-party studios. The studios were encouraged to develop live service projects, but the final decision seems to have been up to each team.
Naughty Dog’s focus on a single-player game shows that they chose to stick to what they do best. Unfortunately, those background decisions rarely become known to the rest of us, but it seems like this mystery has been solved.
Source: Eurogamer
