Contrary to common opinion

There’s a common sentiment among PlayStation enthusiasts that Bungie waded into Naughty Dog’s offices, saw a finished version of The Last of Us 2’s long anticipated live service multiplayer game, and immediately started flipping over tables and ordered the acclaimed developer to cancel the whole thing. The reality was always likely to be less exciting, and Bloomberg’s trustworthy Jason Schreier has shed a little more light on what allegedly happened.

“Bungie gave Naughty Dog feedback that Naughty Dog found extremely helpful when making what was likely a very smart decision to not go all in on a service game,” he revealed on X (or Twitter), when asked pointedly about the cancellation by a fan. “People lamenting this cancellation should really look at the history of single player studios pivoting to make service games such as ANTHEM, Suicide Squad, Marvel’s Avengers, Redfall, and so on.”

Pete Parsons in the firing line

As we alluded to in a feature overnight, we’re not one for scapegoats, and we never believed for a second that if Naughty Dog’s standalone multiplayer game had been as good as everyone anticipated it would have been cancelled. The reality is that the project was very likely troubled and sucking up far too many resources; the Uncharted maker has since revealed that it’s working on two single player projects instead.

Part of Sony’s justification for buying Bungie was that it wanted to create a so-called ‘Live Service Center of Excellence’ with the Destiny dev at the heart, an internal taskforce which all PS Studios could utilise in order to learn best practices for its upcoming games. While the outcome on this occasion was understandably disappointing, it seems Bungie was merely fulfilling its role in this instance by providing Naughty Dog with feedback to help better inform its own decisions.