Destiny devs reportedly "raised questions" about the long-term fun of Last of Us multiplayer

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Bungie's "rigorous review process" seems to be living up to the billing

The Last of Us photo mode
(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

After PlayStation previously announced that Bungie would help conduct a "rigorous review process" of the publisher's live service catalog, a new report suggests that the recently delayed Last of Us multiplayer game was the first casualty of this reevaluation.

PlayStation acquired Destiny 2 developer Bungie in a $3.6 billion deal announced over a year ago. During a financial report earlier this week (via TweakTown), Sony announced that it intends to "work with Bungie on a rigorous review process across the 12 live services we're working on," adding that the studio has helped PlayStation "more deeply understand what success means in live services."

Bloomberg says that the Last of Us multiplayer game has not been canceled, though development has been scaled back while the company "reevaluates the direction."

While The Last of Us is primarily known for its single-player narrative, the Factions multiplayer mode included in the original game has a devoted cult following. A similar follow-up mode was expected in The Last of Us Part 2, though it was delayed from the game's launch and eventually re-announced as a standalone title.

Today, multiplayer games live and die by their ability to keep players coming back not just for weeks, but years. After all, that's the only way a game can keep players dropping cash over the long haul. This Last of Us multiplayer game might've been able to satisfy Factions fans in its current state - we'll never know for sure - but it seems it wasn't expected to meet PlayStation's lofty live-service ambitions.

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Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.