- Former Microsoft executive Laura Fryer says Naughty Dog’s decision to cancel The Last of Us Online “it was the right call”
- He explains that the studio “made a very difficult choice” going forward and realized that we couldn’t continue with a live service game.
- Fryer also questioned why Naughty Dog greenlit it in the first place, saying, “The desire was there, but the actual planning wasn’t.”
Former Microsoft Game Studios executive producer Laura Fryer reflects on the decision to cancel The Last of Us On the Internet it was the right decision on Naughty Dog’s part, and greenlighting the project was “a real mistake”.
Earlier this month, The Last of Us On the Internet game director Vinit Agarwal revealed that the multiplayer was “about 80% complete” and “very close to done” before Naughty Dog pulls the plug in 2023.
At the time of the game’s cancellation, the studio known for its single-player titles such as What is not written again The Last of Us it said it canceled the project because it didn’t want to “become a studio for live service games only”.
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Agarwal, who shared that he worked on the game for seven years, learned of its cancellation 24 hours before the public, and that Naughty Dog decided to focus on its main narrative single-player game, Intergalactic: The Rogue Prophetinstead of diverting resources to an online article.
According to Laura Fryer, despite how painful the cancellation was for the band and “soul-crushing” as Agarwal described it, it was “the right call”.
“A lot of people said they should have just finished the game and sent it because it was so close, and I understand how frustrating it must be for the players who were looking forward to this game,” Fryer said in a new YouTube video.
“But I think that’s missing the big picture because the truth is that this is a classic example of the deception of high costs, and I’ve seen it played out many times before when you have a studio that has already spent many years and millions and they feel that they have to ship the game anyway, that they have no choice, or they know that long-term service support will be brutal.”
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Fryter went on to say, Naughty Dog did not do this and “made a very difficult choice” by looking ahead and realized that it would not be able to support a multiplayer game and risked turning a single-player studio into a live service operation capable of supporting a single game for years to come.
“In my opinion it was the right call,” he said. “Although it hurt the team they worked so hard on, they chose to go back to what was their studio’s bread and butter, single-player narrative games.”
The former Xbox executive also questioned why Naughty Dog decided to start the project in the first place, calling the live service model an “endless treadmill” for studios working on these kinds of games.
“Any studio executive could have used the numbers for which team [of] Naughty Dog’s size could really support it,” continued Fryer. “They could clearly see that a team the size of Naughty Dog would never be able to support a live service game and all their amazing cinematic single-player games. It was impossible. But instead of doing that analysis, they went ahead and let the game go forward. They let it go on for 7 years. “
To follow Our Last Online Cancellationformer PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida revealed that answer from The future developer Bungie was involved in the decision, and Wicked Dog realized they couldn’t support it alongside their single-player projects.
Fryer notes that this was “the problem” in the first place, saying, “The desire was there, but the logical pre-planning was not.”
“Naughty Dog has finally secured what it does best, great cinematic single-player games. That’s great leadership, even if it hurts,” he added. “And sometimes the bravest thing a studio can do is admit that something isn’t going to work before it brings down the whole company.”
He continued, explaining that while fans may be disappointed and he understands the development team’s pain, “pulling the plug, that wasn’t a real mistake.”
“The real mistake was lighting this test in the first place without doing the homework beforehand. That’s my take,” Fryer said.
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