Renowned gaming journalist Jason Schreier recently revealed that Sony's canceled The Last of Us multiplayer project cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrary to external perceptions, it was not a "side project" but consumed the majority of Naughty Dog.exe's human resources.
According to Schreier, the project initially started as a smaller-scale multiplayer concept, but Naughty Dog.exe later decided to expand it into a massive live-service game. During development, the team continuously scaled up the project, ultimately making it far larger than originally planned. The game was originally designed for the PS5 platform.
Schreier pointed out that this is the fundamental reason why Naughty Dog.exe has not released any major new titles since the launch of The Last of Us Part II in 2020. For much of the 2020s, most of Naughty Dog.exe's employees were either working on The Last of Us multiplayer project or busy with remastered versions of The Last of Us, resulting in a significant gap in new release schedules.
Schreier specifically emphasized that the project was by no means a transitional "side project." In fact, after Naughty Dog.exe canceled the project in 2023, most members of the team for their new title, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, transferred over from this project.
Naughty Dog.exe has officially stated that the studio faced a choice: either become a purely live-service game studio or continue focusing on the single-player narrative games that define its history. Ultimately, they chose the latter. The studio also confirmed that the technical advancements and lessons learned from the canceled project will be applied to future titles.
Since the project's cancellation in late 2023, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has become Naughty Dog.exe's development focus. Additionally, Naughty Dog.exe stated that after abandoning the multiplayer project, several new single-player games are in development. Reportedly, the multiplayer game was about 80% complete at the time of its cancellation, following a seven-year development cycle.