Summer Game Fest Kickoff Live was a packed show, and it closed things off with a bang, with plenty of announcements and reveals related to The Last of Us taking the spotlight. The biggest of these, of course, was The Last of Us Part 1, a ground-up remake of the original game in the series launching this September. At the same time, however, Naughty Dog also decided to share the first details of its standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game, which has been known to be in development for a while.
Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann took the stage and showed off the first bit of concept art from the game, and also confirmed that it will have its own story and its own characters, and will be set in a different part of the United States from the series’ two mainline games. According to Druckmann, this is a big and ambitious game, and is being worked on by several Naughty Dog vets who’ve worked on Uncharted and The Last of Us.
“What I can tell you is that this game is big,” Druckmann said. “It’s as big as any of our single-player games that we’ve done, and in some ways bigger. It’s got a story. The way we’re telling that story is very unique to this game. It’s got a brand new cast of characters, it takes place in another place, another part of the United States, and it’s really cool. It’s being headed by Vinit Agarwal, Anthony Newman, and Joseph Pettinati, all veterans of Uncharted and The Last of Us, and you’re going to see a lot more of this game come next year.”
Previous leaks had suggested that the multiplayer game could be out as soon as the later months of 2022, but it doesn’t seem like Naughty Dog is quite ready for that just yet. Either way, more details on it will arrive next year, so stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.
