The Last of Us’ multiplayer mode, called Factions, may not have been the game’s biggest draw, but there was no denying that it was a hell of a lot of fun. A lot of people played it, and a lot of people like it, so it goes without saying that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing what Naughty Dog would have in store on the multiplayer side of things with the upcoming The Last of Us Part 2.
As it turns out- nothing. As US Gamer reports, Naughty Dog has confirmed that they’re not including any sort of a multiplayer mode in the upcoming sequel, and are developing it is a purely single player experience. “We’re focusing on a single-player experience, so we’re just making a single-player game for this,” said Naughty Dog Lead Game Designer Emilia Schatz. Meanwhile, Sony also confirmed the same, saying, “Correct, it is a single player game.”
Game director Neil Druckmann has also confirmed this to The Telegraph, citing the game’s large, complex, and ambitious nature (because of which it will also ship on two discs) as the reason for Naughty Dog choosing to focus only on the single player side of things.
“It’s so ambitious the game doesn’t fit on one BluRay, it’s on two discs,” he said. “It’s so ambitious that we actually decided to make it single player only. There’s no multiplayer in The Last of Us Part 2. We wanted to take all of the resources to make this the biggest game we’ve ever done.”
Considering the way Sony’s games have been designed in recent years, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The likes of God of War, Spider-Man, and Horizon: Zero Dawn were all single player-only, narrative-focused games. That said, Naughty Dog’s games tend to always have multiplayer components, as did the first The Last of Us, and it was one that a lot of people liked. As such, this news is bound to come as a surprise and – no doubt – as a disappointment to a great many people.
That said, Naughty Dog did recently say that The Last of Us Part 2 is their longest and most ambitious game ever, so if the campaign is going to be longer and meatier, I suppose that would certainly help explain why the studio has chosen to focus entirely on it- not to mention the fact it would also help soften the blow for those who’re disappointed by the lack of multiplayer.
The Last of Us Part 2 is out on February 21, 2020 exclusively for the PS4. Head on over here to see details on the various editions it will be launching with.
