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.”
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.
[source x.com]
Comments 60
It's honestly pretty stupid regardless, ND didn't HAVE to make Factions a live service game. They could have just made it a standalone multiplayer game and it would have been a success since ND had done it multiple times now with Uncharted 2, 4, and TLOU.
i mean they saw the product , and they didn't think it was good , if it came out and tanked it would have been a disaster for naughty dog.
Yeah I get but I still wish it seen the light of day maybe in part three …😍
Personally I think it's quite the contrary, for many PlayStation fans Bungie was (and still is) a great developer and their insight could be actually helpful. People who saw the news of ND cancelling the game and immediately thought about Bungie even when ND gave very good reasons aren't real fans, you need to trust the process and the brand. A little luck also helps.
Also the fact that this was canceled doesn't mean they can't re use designs, levels, animations, gameplay, code in general, etc on other games and even TLOU3.
@Nepp67 it was a stand alone mp game. the live service part was updates , and content to the game. i think people are still confused by what live service means , because live service games can also be single player games like assassin creed games.
Ups and downs, in and outs, no matter how you play it, 4 years soon and not a sniff of a ND game.
Leaving my favourite developer, single player big AAA campaign addition high and dry.
ND would have to double or triple in size to be able to support TLOU Online while continuing to make single player games.
I always see people saying "oh, but TLOU Online didn't need to be a live service game", but I'm pretty sure everyone would complain if the game went more than a month without updates. That game would require recurring addition of new skins, maps, events and so on not die in 1 year.
@Nepp67 dude you are watching how we live in a time where people don't want to pay for games anymore because the constant influx of f2p games and you think people were going to pay for a stand alone game with a static multiplayer that will never chance? Nope, not happening with a AAA game and a name as big as The Last of Us.
@ED_209 similar to what I’ve heard; ND would have had to drop all other projects just to support this title and direct all staff to work on it. I’ve also heard that focus and feedback groups that played very early iterations of the game were blown away by it. A lot of the elements in development will be carried over into other games.
@Nepp67 I agree. A $40 multiplayer game that built on the original Factions with new gameplay and mechanics likely would have sold very well.
It may not have stuck around for eternity like Fortnite, but I'm sure it would have found its audience and it's a shame in hindsight we're never going to get that.
@GymratAmarillo I think people would have bought it. I don't think it would have been the biggest game on the planet, but I think it would have done well enough to justify its existence.
TLOU multiplayer is my all time favorite PVP. I was very disappointed when they canceled it. It’s my 2nd biggest gaming disappointment behind the cancellation of Dark Cloud 3.
I have to question the timing of this statement when Bungie is making yet another round of mass layoffs immediately following what seems to be a successful expansion launch.
Well, you can't really tell unless you tried and failed. Who knew R* could make online fun with GTA4, in the days when it was all about Call of Duty 4 Modem Warfare. See how big GTA Online is now but hey there's only so much you can do in some post apocalyptic setting, you can't have brand new guns or cars or clothes being added every month to keep people engaged, yeah there's Fallout 76 maybe, but that's wacky so it's believable when they add any type of ridiculous content, TLOU on the other hand is serious business - realistic, you can't add just anything. So yeah Bungie may have been right.
We still dont know if somebody at bungie gave some feedback to Firework on Concord...
Kinda funny how Bungie are out giving "advice" considering where Bungie currently is now.
I just don't see how a developer as talented as ND could put so many resources into Factions' design and planning and realize THAT FRICKIN LATE that the resources needed to do what they explicitly planned to do would be far too great. Like... at some point, that's a failure of leadership/planning.
There are plenty of multiplayer games that release and get years of updates whose developers have A FRACTION of the resources ND has at its disposal. "It would have gotten too big" is not an excuse when THEY DECIDE HOW BIG OF A GAME IT IS.
ND may have created some of the best games of all time, but the failure to launch Factions is a huge black eye, imo. It speaks to some really poor decision making somewhere in their chain of command.
Thats fine and ND should be for single player. But did no one at Bungie give any advice on concord lol, like hey maybe make good characters
@OldGamer999 - Funny thing is that I doubt we would be playing their new game by now even if TLOU Online never existed.
I mean, Naughty Dog has gone through a pandemic, a canceled project and a mega restructuring. A new IP nowadays, with the quality we know from Naughty Dog would probably take 5 to 6 years to be made anyway. Perhaps the project would have already been announced, but Naughty Dog itself has already stated that it regretted announcing TLOU2 so early.
@Nepp67 Finally someone I can talk too. The original was great fun with a little basic unlockables like skins and maybe some good maps it would have been great. Not everything needs to be like Fortnite just accept that you can make a fun game with some standard unlockables. The same goes for for Twisted Metal make it like Twisted Metal World Tour with better graphics and online multiplayer.
Naughty Dog had no business trying to make a standalone multiplayer game. Single player story games and 3D platformers, that’s what the people want from them!
@Xbox_Dashboard There is a successful expansion but have they created so far but besides that what else. Its a massive studio and besides Concord what is there to be happy about.
The thought that a factions game wouldn’t have sold is for the birds. It would definitely been a success I’m sure
@twitchtvpat The thing they called a expansion in the past. My favorite online game Guild Wars with massive new expansions. I'm glad it didn't go through otherwise we would not see a new single player thing again.
I'm. Not sure what benefit live service would have brought to factions, but there's no doubt in my mind that factions would have been a great game regardless. The first one was far better than most 6v6 shooters, including some cod iterations.
@twitchtvpat I don't believe that since Outlast Trials is an example of being a standalone multiplayer coop game and the most recent update was the devs literally stating that they are switching to a live service model.
I got the impression that ND wanted this to be an MMO type deal, with a huge world, very dense.
Many who've played Naughty Dog's multiplayers would have been happy to see maps, made from the levels you play in the game, just like Uncharted and TLOU MPs.
ND should go back to basics and just keep their core great gameplay, MP like Uncharted 4, but without the outlandish perks.
Brutal Melee and gun combat, maybe with some infected hoard gameplay and great cover mechanics.
I think many would have loved a huge world set in the TLOU universe, with regular expansions too that, but the lack of getting a new IP like the rumoured High Fantasy title or Savage Starlight or maybe something out of left field like bringing back Jak and Daxter with a remake or new entry with more realism would have rubbed the rest of Naughty Dog's fans up the wrong way, people are already saying TLOU is all ND makes and remasters of their old games.
Personally I'd love to see ND make a Jak and Daxter remake, at least some studio could make use of the IP.
I'm excited to see what the studio comes up with next, hopefully a Science Fiction, futuristic style game, with TLOU brutal combat and Uncharted style exploration would be great IMO.
Almost seven years now since Naughty Dog released a new game that isn't TLOU-related, with no end in sight. Ugh.
I want something fun and less depressing/torture porn-y again.
Originally a PVE expansion to Part II would do fan service very well, but I guess they tried too hard to find success in capitalizing beyond single player baseline audience.
They still could, just with a better unique new IP that could showcase their live service/vision novelty.
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Ooff.. I honestly miss Gravity Rush 2's live service aspect.
Enjoyed those fun little treasure huntings.
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theres another scenario no one talks about
Naughty dog had already made factions 2 and then hand it off to Firewalk studios and they do the live service stuff for it. rather than Concord they should have worked on this
basically last of us factions 2 would have been way bigger than the DOA Concord
The potential of a part 2's multiplayer will always hurt me. The last of Us one's multiplayer is incredibly good, so unique, and has an atmosphere and tension unlike anything else I've played.
What I and I think plenty of others wanted was just an extension of what Factions was. But I guess it is true; the landscape is different now. With the amount of money and time that would have been sunken into this project, it would have been closer to a Helldivers 2 I suppose. They would have worried too much about adding more content and keeping the player base engaged, rather than just letting it be as the first did
Which in turn would have taken too many resources. Or maybe it wasn't good from the start, was all over the place, and Bungie did right. I'd like to know the details more in depth. Oh well, just don't shut down my Factions 1 servers!
@Flaming_Kaiser yes twisted metal. Another great game that we will never have along with socom,retribution and killzone. Sony have really dropped the ball with their franchises and it's getting depressing.
Launching a MP title into the currently overcrowded market would have been madness. Things have progressed significantly since their last attempt and you really need to be built from the ground up as a MP studio to even stand a chance. ND should have farmed it off to a MP specialist studio if it was that important to them.
As always people's narrative proves wrong
@Solingo_Bill
Such an impotent statement. What people? Surely, each individual has their own narrative!?
Have you even read the article? The rumour brought to us by the so-called game journalists here was that Bungie gave criticism that ultimately contributed to ND dropping Factions. That is still the case with the non-news as reported by toad Schreier.
These snarky oneliners are so goddamn empty and deserted, but it empowers you to feel smart, so whatever.
None of us know what the game was like. Just because it has TLOU on the box doesn’t mean it was a good live service experience.
The original story NEVER rang true. Do you really think Sony would write off years of development costs, likely hundreds of millions, simply because Bungie said so. No. Sure Bungie would have given some critical feedback and advice but decisions like this simply aren’t decided by another studio. That was always BS
Best decision they could have made. They are famous for making amazing skngle player player experiences. They need to double down on that, we have enough cookie cutter multiplayer games out there.
I don't blame Bungie for the cancelation of Factions 2. They were just doing what Sony brought them on to do which is provide feedback.
That said though, I will always kind of blame them for in many ways pioneering the live service model that has basically destroyed any chance of a game not named Call of Duty having both campaign and multiplayer options.
Of course the single player was the main attraction in TLOU1 but Factions was a big part of the package for many people too. I miss the PS3 era when games would experiment with a multiplayer mode along with the single player mode. Could it feel tacked-on at times? Sure but it also created something great at times like Factions.
Nobody wants a live service game. Just give us a great multiplayer like you used to in uncharted 2-4 and the last of us1
Whilst clearly there wasn't enough there for the kind of mega blockbuster GTA/COD beating live service game,(or without a heavily expanded ND to maintain it & still work on other projects),its surprising if no thought was given to retask some of it into a dlc expansion or similar to TLOU 2.
Shame they didn’t take their own opinion
@EfYI "so called game journalist here" lol you don't even know that Schreier is the only journalist that speaks only with strong sources.
"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"
And that's all
My opinion is the same now as it was then. ND more than likely just wanted to make an updated Factions as part of 2's PC port but Jim Ryan mandated they turn it into a full live-service game. They did what they had to until Jimmy boy announced his "retirement," then got the reality check from Bungie that they'd have to effectively become a live service developer to make it work so the higher-ups at ND and/or Herman Hulst came to the correct decision it would be a massive missallocation of their talent and scrapped it. Timeline of the announcement makes it obvious
People forget that that ND have previous on turning smaller projects and turning them into much bigger ones. Uncharted The Lost Legacy was originally meant to be a smaller story expansion that was part of U4's season pass. But it became far more ambitious that it became a standalone release and Sony had to cancel the season pass.
Just an update on Factions was never going to be enough for ND, I always felt they wanted to do something more closer in scale to something like The Division. The problem is how to you get recurring revenue from it that brings in the kind of quality content that ND is known for? Most live service games are set in fantasy or sci-fi settings because they can go crazy on cosmetics for players to express themselves, TLOU can't do that without it being very jarring, the reality is there's only so many shirts, jackets and backpacks you can make without it looking samey.
@OldGamer999 I think you will see something from them soon enough! It was four years between Uncharted 4 and TLOU2 and they have two games in development with a huge team. They also are going to announce their next game and release it in quick succession when they do announce it.
Do Naughty Dog even exist anymore? We just keep getting gaslit into believing they're 'working on two games' or whatever. Where's the evidence? Keep waiting, PS fans..
@IamJT
I do hope you are right as need an ND single player campaign game.
It’s a very interesting point you made about the 4 years between Uncharted 4 and TLOU2.
It seems every studio seems to be taking almost double time with developing games nowadays.
@Flippygruffle It's only been 4 years. Sorry, but that's nothing in today's game development environment.
Factions 2 was never going to be the limited MP game some people think it would have been. It would've been a massive live service game like Suicide Squad, Redfall or Anthem... need I say more?
I could have given them advice to bin the live service game for a chill million pounds, no need to buy an entire studio for that
(an entire studio that's apparently hemorrhaging money)
@GymratAmarillo name one good F2P game that is good that isn't catered to children? Or is good at the start but ends up completely screwing OG players by changing every aspect of the game, removing items we paid (or grinded) a LOT for, nerfing characters/skills into Oblivion ect.
Oh and FF Online and Warframe don't count. So name any games other then that. On consoles. I used to like Neverwinter but man the stuff they did should be illegal.
@Nepp67 I think what's on everyone's mind myself included is this. Bungie has been in turmoil they are and have always been incapable of being independent. They also can't be anything else. Xbox dumped em. Activision dumped em. The latter they blamed so much on yet some of the best content came from that 🤔.
Point is with all these troubles. A CEO who wants to spend cash on the backs of his talent while paying them ***k. Missing revenue targets because they oversold their company and it's capability to produce. Massive layoffs. The Final Shape looming. Can anyone TRUST their assessment on a competing game especially one as popular as TLOU?
Is this conspiracy theory? Possibly. Probably? Just shedding some light on the issue. I wouldn't trust a word if its comes from the LT at Bungie. They lost their most important Seniors probably because dude was throwing stripper parties with all that Sony money instead of moving Bungie forward.
Stuff will come to light. Some may take a couple years. Some we will find out soon.
@OldGamer999 yea dev times have gotten longer, but I imagine a lot of what was done for factions got subsumed by TLOU3, and that happened much earlier than the studio announced. I think we get a new ND game next year, with the announcement only 3-6 months before launch!
@IamJT
Really hope so, it’s about now the PS5 and maybe the PS5 Pro started showing us 4th year Nov 2024 plus generation games.
Those top end Sony Studio big AAA games that I have a PS5 for.
Schopenhauer's three stages of truth:
1) "on Twitter"
2) "on X (or Twitter)"
3) "on X"
People saying naughty dog had no business making an mp standalone game, guess whats the biggest priced mp aaa game is today? Gta online. And rockstar and naughty dog are quite clearly at the top of single player AAA developers in the world.
Why not just make a classic multiplayer title with death match, team death match and some sort of co-op mode?
Halo Infinite never worked as a live service title but my word it’s still a hell of a lot of fun just jumping into a game of Slayer or Firefight.
Trust me bro "Jason", no I dont think so.
@Northern_munkey And Twisted Metal World Tour just improve the graphics and jam in the multiplayer blasting each other of the iconic maps you don't even need to make it a €70 game it's fun enough already.
@Northern_munkey Killzone 3 and Resistance 3 I got platinum on both games.
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