The essence of The Last of Us is not in the multiplayer, so Naughty Dog does not do the Multiplayer at the same time as The Last of Us 2.
We all know that The Last of Us 2 will not have a Multiplayer. When Naughty Dog published this information, many gamers reacted violently and frustrated because the online mode Factions Mode in the first part was too attractive, has unique gameplay, and unlike anything. was on the market at the time. The level of adverse reaction of fans to this information surprised both Sony and Naughty Dog.
However, keep in mind that The Last of Us brand is not famous for its online play. This is just an added mode to create something new. Factions Mode is not a reason for The Last of Us to score an absolute 10, gain 95 points on Metacritic or sell more than 17 million copies. If Naughty Dog decides not to do the online part with The Last of Us 2, that still does not affect the original game’s quality.
Everyone praised the first game: how storytelling goes into people’s hearts; the cast from primary to secondary is excellent, unique; gameplay creates a sense of tension, tightness; How to make situations and handle situations subtly. Coming to The Last of Us 2, all of these factors could be improved even more.
As far as we know, the next part will revolve around Ellie. Joel may only play a supporting role. The game’s plot will talk about revenge, the loss of Ellie, and the factions. Through trailers or shares from Naughty Dog, The Last of Us 2 is expected to be the company’s best game, more than any game they’ve ever made. Games developed by the developer give it a much broader perspective on the single-player experience of video games.
Why is Naughty Dog not doing the multiplayer game and releasing it simultaneously as the single-player? We can understand simply that the developer wants to put all the human resources to make the best Campaign part. If you decide to have Multiplayer, Naughty Dog will have to choose 1 of 2 decisions. One is that they will have to split personnel for both modes of play. This is relatively risky because so the quality of the Campaign or Multiplayer or both may not be as expected. Naughty Dog has a second option: to assign another group to develop the online game, separate from the group as a single player. However, if so, the link between the two modes will not be. The online game will probably cause the entire The Last of Us franchise to receive a bitter defeat.
You can look at Sony’s PlayStation 3 era. At that time, SIE tried to create many exclusive games spread across many genres such as Puppeteer, Rain, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone, Resistance, ModNation Racers, PlayStation All-Stars MotorStorm. Importantly, not all of these games are great. Their quality is rarely matched with Uncharted, God of War, or The Last of Us.
This shows that when you understand and know your strengths, then focus on that strength. The results will be much better than you spread. Sony has done that with its businesses. It tries to reduce the Vaio laptop segment and double its workforce, financially for the segment. They are doing better than PlayStation or TV.
That’s the way Naughty Dog is doing with The Last of Us 2. Maybe they did quite well with the multiplayer part of the first The Last of Us. However, they are now one of the pioneers in telling the story of the campaign play. And they decided to put all they had to take it to a new level in The Last of Us 2, instead of trying to spread out both single and online play. I think the gamers will also fully support that.
On the other hand, Naughty Dog also shared that they have a multiplayer project, but will be developed and released completely separate from The Last of Us 2. Fans can fully expect great play like the Factions Mode of The First of Us First. And I also hope this will be a long-term supported game, not the one-year model that has been shut down by Sony. Up till now, we have only waited and trusted the talent of Naughty Dog.
Finally, not all games must have and need Multiplayer mode. Game developers should focus resources on what they do best, giving gamers a game with quality worthy of expectations. Some games have the Campaign section but are worth $ 60, there are also games with both Campaign and Multiplayer, but $ 1 is not worth it.
