Summary
Though it’s one of the more recent franchises in the gaming world,The Last of Ushas quickly become one of the most beloved video game IPs of all time, though it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Upon its debut in 2013,The Last of Usbecame an overnight sensation, breaking new ground for narrative-focused single-player experiences. And while its sequel,The Last of Us Part 2received incredible critical acclaimupon its release in 2020, it proved to be a tad divisive among fans, and unfortunately, that isn’t the only trouble the franchise has run into.
While the HBOThe Last of Usshow is generally considered to be a great adaptation of the source material, featuring excellent performances and writing, it was accompanied around the same time by a remake of the first game. Though many fans viewed this full-price remake as unnecessary, it did offer some decent upgrades and was generally reviewed well, though the same can’t be said for thePC port ofThe Last of Us Part 1, which Naughty Dog is still trying to fix. And with two projects allegedly in some troubled water right now,The Last of Usisn’t out of the woods just yet.
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The Last of Us Multiplayer and The Last of Us Season 2 Are Both Suffering From Behind-The-Scenes Trouble
Originally envisioned as an additional mode forThe Last of Us Part 2,The Last of Usmultiplayer became its own separate project back in 2019, with Naughty Dog properly confirming that work on the spinoff was still happening back in 2021. Then, duringSummer Game Fest in 2022, Neil Druckmann took to the stage to show some concept art forThe Last of Usmultiplayer, along with the promise that fans would see more in 2023. But that hasn’t really happened.
Back in May of this year, a Jason Schreier Bloomberg report alleged that work onThe Last of Usmultiplayer had slowed down, with some issues brewing behind the scenes. According to Bloomberg’s sources, the recently acquired Bungie was tasked by Sony to evaluate all of its upcoming live-service projects, and apparently, it flagged upThe Last of Usmultiplayer as a game that might not have the “ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time.” According to the report and a subsequent update, Bungie’s concerns have led Sony to scale backThe Last of Usmultiplayer’s development, with a good portion of the team being moved onto other Naughty Dog projects. An official statement from Naughty Dog following the report stated thatThe Last of Usmultiplayer needed more time in the oven, and fans haven’t heard anything since.
But the multiplayer spinoff isn’t the onlyLast of Usproject in a tough spot right now. The second season of HBO’sThe Last of Usis also undergoing its own setbacks right now. Originally slated for a2025 release,The Last of UsSeason 2has been quietly delayed for an unknown amount of time due to the ongoing writer and actor’s strikes. Before the strikes started a few months ago,The Last of Us' creators were all pretty confident about the upcoming second season, claiming that scripts had largely been finished and that filming was set to start soon.
Currently, there doesn’t really seem to be an end in sight for the strikes, though it’ll hopefully only be a matter of time before both actor and writer unions manage to get a deal they’re happy with. With both actors and writers striking at the same time, the Hollywood production machine has been practically crippled for almost 150 days now, and though the aftermath of this strike can’t be calculated just yet, it’s sure to have a major knock-on effect for a good while, meaning that it could be quite some time before fans get to seeThe Last of UsSeason 2. MoreThe Last of Usprojects are not seemingly in the works, which will create a big gap between releases.
