Only a day after Naughty Dog reportedly laid off “dozens” of contract employees who had been engaged on its supposedly nonetheless coming Last Of Us multiplayer title, stated to be Factions, the principal monetization designer on the sport has left the studio;
Noticed first by NaughtyDogInfo on Twitter, designer Anders Howard now has his time at Naughty Canine listed as ending September 2023 on his LinkedIn profile.
https://x.com/NaughtyDogInfo/standing/1709638637082599934?s=20
Howard was within the place for under 11 months, and on prime of the layoffs this doesn’t all appear to bode properly for this multiplayer title Naughty Canine has been pouring seemingly a whole lot of assets into.
After Bungie regarded on the recreation and forged doubt on it being viable for a long-running reside service, Naughty Canine has “scaled down” the mission, because it claims it’s “re-evaluating” the tasks path.
Factions as a multiplayer add on to the unique The Last Of Us was a shock hit in each sense.
In a time the place multiplayer modes had been being added to each recreation, just because having a web-based multiplayer mode appeared very important to publishers, nobody might have anticipated Factions to be as standard because it was.
But it surely ended up having a neighborhood of gamers that also play it even immediately, and whereas the return of Factions could have as soon as appeared like a glowing alternative, its seemingly struggled improvement cycle may seal its destiny earlier than gamers even get their palms on it.
On the very least we additionally know that it’s not all multiplayer focus at Naughty Canine, as we know it is working on a new single player project.
Supply – [NaughtyDogInfo on Twitter]