The Hell Is Going On With The Last Of Us Factions, Naughty Dog’s Standalone PS5 Multiplayer Game?

If there was a game we would claim our life savings for showing up during last night’s flub PS Showcase, this was the last of our factions. Naughty Dog hasn’t actually given us an official name for the project yet, so we’re using the moniker fans tend to recycle the most – but to be clear, we’ll refer to the standalone spin-off online. The studio is in development. It’s likely to be the crown jewel of Sony’s live service strategy, and will certainly have a budget many, many times higher than many titles. were announced, as did Fairgame$ and Concorde – neither of which showed gameplay.

So, what’s going on? Well, in 2019 – that’s four years ago, by the way – it was confirmed that unlike the original The Last of Us, the sequel The Last of Us: Part II will be a single-player game. It confirmed at the time that the mod had reached the end of its life, and to focus on completing the core campaign, it discontinued the project as a standalone release. “We’re big fans of Factions like the rest of our community and are excited to share more when it’s ready,” it said at the time.

Fast forward four years, a successful television series, and a complete PS5 and PC remake of the original game, and we’re still none the wiser. In 2020, series creator Neil Druckmann promised that the multiplayer game would be “worth the wait”, then said in 2021 that it wouldn’t show it until “it’s ready”. In 2022 it said it was the developer’s “biggest effort yet” and shared some concept art, promising it would announce more in 2023. We got a second piece of concept art in January, but we’re now in May, followed by a major PS showcase, and we haven’t heard a peep – despite frequent promises of more information soon.

Naughty Dog hasn’t really touched social media this week, aside from promoting its crossover Destiny 2 skin, and series creator Neil Druckmann hasn’t commented — despite no doubt being inundated with questions. The title is likely to re-emerge during the next month Summer Game Fest – This is where The Last of Us: Part I was announced last year – but it would be odd for Sony to skip its own event in favor of an independent one. Last year it didn’t host a press conference, so Druckmann’s cameo made more sense in that context.

It’s clear that this is an ambitious, unprecedented undertaking – we’re not even sure how Naughty Dog’s will be able to transfer its trademark eye for detail to a title that will likely rely on regular content updates. But at some point, the studio has to stop fobbing us off and show us what it’s got. The developer is approaching half a decade on the project — it had a hand in a critically acclaimed TV show. And A blockbuster movie ever since it was announced – and we’re still not clear on when it’s coming out.

The real salt in the wound is that clearly incomplete Fairgame$ and Concorde were Considered far enough away to feature during last night’s PS showcase. Does this mean that The Last of Us factions? Even further Away from them both?