Naughty Dog Has Two Single-Player Games In Development, Described As “Ambitious” And “Brand-New”

Naughty Dog has canceled its The Last of Us multiplayer game, as the studio shifts its focus to single-player games. The studio has at least two of these projects in the works now, the company said in a blog post.

These games are unannounced. Given the massive success of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us series, many are expecting that The Last of Us: Part III might be one of the upcoming games, but this is not confirmed. Naughty Dog has said it might make The Last of Us: Part III, and there is already an outline for it, but the company might also not make it.

Could Naughty Dog return to the Uncharted series? Don’t get your hopes up for that, as Naughty Dog has said it is “done” with the franchise (though a different team could, of course, make its own Uncharted game).

Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann is writing and directing a new game, but he can’t say what it is just yet.

“I know the fans really want The Last of Us: Part III, I hear about it all the time,” Druckmann said. “All I can say is that we’re already into our next project, the decision has already been made. I can’t say what it is.”

Some also believe that Naughty Dog might turn its attention to a totally new genre, fantasy, for its next game. Nothing is confirmed at this stage apart from the fact that Naughty Dog has at least two new single-player games in the works.

Addressing the cancellation of The Last of Us Online, as it was called, Naughty Dog said the team would have needed to put all of its resources into the game and supporting its post-launch content for “years to come.” This would have “severely” impacted the team’s ability to make single-player games at the same time. So Naughty Dog had to choose.

“We had two paths in front of us: become a solely live-service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage,” the team said. Naughty Dog chose the latter, and will now focus exclusively on single-player games.

Naughty Dog’s next release is The Last of Us: Part II Remastered, which comes to PS5 in January.