The Last of Us multiplayer spin-off game still has more revelations on the way. That's according to franchise director Neil Druckmann in a recent Kinda Funny Games spoilercast presentation.
The Last of Us has been a massive success for PlayStation, as both a showcase for the PlayStation 5 and for video game storytelling. This has led to the adaptation of the game's story to other media as well, in particular the successful TV series that has been launched to wide acclaim on HBO.
Nonetheless, The Last of Us still has more on the way and this includes the aforementioned spin-off content. According to Druckmann, the multiplayer-focused Last of Us game is something that will be discussed a lot more as the year goes on. As Druckmann states, "What the team has put together is so cool. It's very different from what I would do, but that's part of the exciting thing about it, with other people playing in this world," adding that it's considered to be Naughty Dog's "next big title."
Originally developed as a multiplayer mode for The Last of Us Part 2, the game has since been promoted to a full, standalone experience while still taking place in the overall Last of Us universe. This change, which Naughty Dog revealed during the 2022 Summer Game Fest, is planned to be as big as anything that Naughty Dog has done to date. The game's setting, which occurs in another part of America from that which the other Last of Us games is set, further cements the game as its own unique spin on the established canon in The Last of Us as a whole.
Games being promoted to either standalone content or entirely new experiences within the same universe or franchise as other games is not unheard of - Final Fantasy 15 started as the Versus project for the series' 13th chapter to name an example - but multiplayer content being expanded to fill the role of a full game is another matter entirely. Naughty Dog has a lot of expectations to live up to in maintaining the quality of storytelling and gameplay in this kind of project, stripping away an entire component of a game to build it out as a standalone experience while staying true to the series and its standards that have been set in past titles.
Of course, multiplayer-focused titles are many more times as difficult to get right as well compared to more solitary experiences, so it stands to reason that there are as many things that can go wrong as there are expectations to live up to. It remains to be seen if a standalone multiplayer take on The Last of Us can pull this off, but if it does then there's a high chance that even more could be considered in this space in the future.
The Last of Us multiplayer spin-off game is in development as a PlayStation exclusive.
Source: KindaFunny Games
