The Last of Us multiplayer game will reportedly be "very, very live service-y"

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But in a Naughty Dog way

The Last of Us Part 1
(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

The recently announced Last of Us multiplayer game will reportedly lean heavily into the live service side of things.

In case you missed the initial announcement, Naughty Dog took the stage during Summer Game Fest yesterday to give a rather meaty update on The Last of Us' upcoming standalone multiplayer game, previously referred to as Factions. It's now being described as being on a similar scale to Naughty Dog's biggest single-player games, with its own story, characters, and San Francisco setting.

"What started as a multiplayer mode has evolved due to the team's ambition," Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann said of the project. "They really wanted to do something beyond what we've ever done before at Naughty Dog, and we felt that the way to do it justice is to make it a standalone title. They've been working on it for the past two years, ambition has grown, and we're not quite ready to fully unveil it, but we're ready to lift the curtain a little bit and just give you an update of where we're at."

We now have some additional details per industry insider Jeff Grubb, who touched on The Last of Us multiplayer in a recent Giant Bomb stream (timestamped here). Apparently, the game will be "very, very live servicey," but in a distinctly "Naughty Dog way." Here's what that might look like, according to Grubb:

"The reason it got delayed - the reason this isn't just Factions - for one, they wanted to make it more ambitious; they wanted it to be its own thing. But then also they wanted to spend a lot of time building out the specific technology so they could do a live-service game in a Naughty Dog way, which means making it very easy for them to create new content and then just slot it in without you having to download a lot of stuff. They're gonna make it very easy to keep it updated and add new content."

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Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.