It’s been a rough couple of years for PlayStation and its live-service game slate, with around 75% of the projects being cancelled for one reason or another.
One such game was The Last of Us Online, or better known to the community as Factions. The game was publicly cancelled in 2023, with Naughty Dog saying it would be shifting its focus to single-player games instead. On paper at least, The Last of Us Online could have argubly been one of PlayStation’s live-service cash cows and according to Shuhei Yoshida, the game played great.
Speaking on the Sacred Symbols+ podcast (via pushsquare), Yoshida said “the idea for The Last of Us Online came from Naughty Dog and they really wanted to make it, nut Bungie explained [to them] what it takes to make live service games, and Naughty Dog realised, ‘Oops, we can’t do that! If we do it, we can’t make Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.’ So that was a lack of foresight.”
Yoshida went on to explain that from his experience at least, no development team at PlayStation has been forced to develop a live-service game and that the games are pitched by the studios based on the direction they believe the industry is going.
“From my experience, when studios see the company has a big initiative, [they realise] riding on that gives them a better chance of getting a project approved and supported,” he explained. “It’s not like [current PS Studios boss Hermen Hulst] is telling teams they need to make live service games, it’s likely mutual,” he said.
As for PlayStation’s current slate of live-service games, that has been cut drastically in the past couple of years. Bungie’s Marathon, Haven Studio’s Fairgame$, and a Horizon live-service game are still in development, but as of the time of writing, no firm release dates have been set.
What do you think of the current live-service situation over at PlayStation and the rest of the industry? Let us know in the comments or on our community forum!
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