Bungie Reportedly Convinced Naughty Dog Not To Focus on Live Service

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Abdullah Waseem

At T4G, my task is to cover the latest news around the gaming globe ASAP and with the utmost precision. I adore all the games and respect all the devs behind the amazing games that we get all year. So, whether it’s a PC or a Console game, I got it all covered. 

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Naughty Dog is one of the finest studios in the industry, with games like The Last of Us and Uncharted under its belts. While the studio has had its fair share of multiplayer offerings in the past, Bungie warned it not to delve too much into the live service genre.

Why it matters: Naughty Dog was previously developing The Last of Us Multiplayer, which was later shelved. It seems it dodged a bullet with the move, considering the market is becoming saturated and less profitable.

According to Jason Schreier, Bungie gave Naughty Dog some feedback that turned out to be great, such as not going all in at a live service game. It seems that that feedback resulted in the cancellation of The Last of Us Multiplayer.

While most fans were sad that the game was cancelled, it seems to have been for the best. Naughty Dog does have multiplayer experience, but the market today is quite different, and single-player studios haven’t had the best live service games in recent years.

Some recent examples include Suicide Squad by Rocksteady, Marvel’s Avengers by Crystal Dynamics, and Redfall by Arkane Austin. However, making multiplayer a part of future games rather than an entirely separate release might not hurt.

While multiplayer modes were never the standout parts of past Uncharted games, they were still enjoyable. The original Factions also had a small but dedicated community.

The major problem seems to be that Naughty Dog would have had to dedicate too many resources to the live service project, so Bungie advised against this push. Bungie itself has been struggling recently.

This week, the studio faced major job cuts, and various team members were absorbed into PlayStation studios. As Bungie is a live service studio with plenty of experience from Destinty, its feedback might have been a blessing in disguise.

Abdullah Waseem

News Reporter

Abdullah is an avid gamer who primarily plays single-player titles. If you can’t find him anywhere, he’ll probably be at his desk playing The Witcher 3 for the millionth time. When he isn’t playing games, he’s either reading or writing about them.