Upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game might be free to play

The Last of Us multiplayer
(Image credit: Sony)

The upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game could be free to play if job listings are anything to go by. 

As spotted on Reddit, Naughty Dog is currently looking to hire a 'producer - live ops' with experience "in a production role supporting a AAA, free to play, live title." The job listing doesn't explicitly mention The Last of Us but we do know that The Last of Us is getting a massive standalone multiplayer game set in San Francisco. So it makes sense to assume that the job listing is for this project. 

It was previously reported that The Last of Us multiplayer game will apparently be "very, very live service-y", and considering that the job description also asks for experience "in customer support, player support, or community management" as well as "experience working with networking server or online processes," it does seem like this will be the case. 

In case you missed it, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann revealed the standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game during Summer Games Fest 2022, where he also revealed The Last of Us Part 1 for the first time. "What started as a multiplayer mode has evolved due to the team's ambition," Druckmann said at the time, "this game is big. It's as big as any of our single-player games, and in some ways bigger." 

Other than some concept art, we haven't seen anything else about this game just yet. That isn't to say that there haven't been some ideas floating around though. In fact, the concept art alone seems to have all but confirmed a fan theory that says that at one point in time there was a quarantine zone in San Francisco that had a large firefly presence in it. This has led fans to believe that we may be playing as Fireflies who will have to fight against the infected and rival groups in the multiplayer game when it releases. 

Already finished The Last of Us Part 1? Take a look at our games like The Last of Us list to help you decide what to play next. 

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.