10 Video Games They Were Right To Cancel

In June 2022, Naughty Dog confirmed that the planned multiplayer mode for The Last of Us Part II had expanded into its own standalone title, with a scale said to rival that of the single-player experience, while taking place in a part of the United States previously unexplored in the series - assumed to be San Francisco from concept art.

But reports of the game's troubled development began to emerge in 2023, as Sony reportedly "reassessed" the project's long-term viability internally, and rumours spread that the game had effectively been shelved.

Last December, Naughty Dog formally confirmed that The Last of Us Online had indeed been cancelled, and while the news was a crushing disappointment to the franchise's passionate fans, their rationale made the decision to pull the plug seem absolutely vital.

The developer explained that the game's scale and live service nature would've made it impossible for them to also develop the cinematic single-player games they've built their brand on. 

And so, they either had to commit to becoming a purely live service studio, or focus on narrative-driven single-player experiences, with the company smartly choosing the latter.

A new multiplayer Last of Us game is a potential-rich idea, but at the expense of one of the greatest AAA studios in gaming history doing what they do best? Not a chance. This was the only choice to make.