The Last of Us Online Director Says Former Colleagues Still Call it “The Best Multiplayer Game”

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Despite the cancellation of The Last of Us Online in December 2023, its former director, Vinit Agarwal, says he still receives messages from team members who believe it was the best multiplayer game they ever worked on. He recently shared a social media post expressing his gratitude to his former colleagues for their dedication.

It’s amazing how many former coworkers still reach out and tell me how incredible TLOU Online was going to be—they still consider it the best multiplayer game they’ve ever experienced. I’m determined to make sure anything I work on gets released in the future. Thanks to everyone for your support and belief in me!

The game was cancelled a few years ago, and Naughty Dog explained they wouldn’t have been able to provide adequate support for the multiplayer features after its release.

Naughty Dog’s team has been developing this multiplayer game since the creation of The Last of Us Part 2, believing it could be something truly special. Over time, as they worked on The Last of Us Online, their ideas became clearer, the gameplay improved, and they grew excited about the project’s progress.

As we prepared to launch fully, we realized just how big our plans for The Last of Us Online were. To release and maintain the online game, we would need to dedicate all of our studio’s resources to ongoing updates and content for many years, which would significantly delay the development of new single-player games. This left us with a difficult choice: become a studio focused entirely on live service games, or continue making the story-driven, single-player games that Naughty Dog is known for.

Earlier this month, Agarwal revealed that The Last of Us Online was nearly finished – about 80% complete – when the project was cancelled. He described the cancellation as incredibly disheartening, saying it was “soul-crushing” after dedicating seven years of work to a game that would never be released.

Finding out the game was cancelled was incredibly difficult after dedicating seven years of my life to it. It was truly heartbreaking to learn about it only 24 hours before the public announcement. It was an unfortunate situation, but the company needed to manage how the news was shared.

Even so, he understood Naughty Dog’s decision. The company had to choose between continuing to support The Last of Us Online or letting Neil Druckmann begin work on his new project, Intergalactic.

Nathaniel Ferguson, a former technical designer who worked on the game, previously shared his enthusiasm for The Last of Us Online, describing it as the most rewarding experience of his career. He also noted that the project held a special place for him.

Laura Fryer, a co-founder of Microsoft Game Studios, recently said the game’s cancellation was ultimately a positive step, but also acknowledged that the project wasn’t managed well.

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2026-04-28 16:43