The Last of Us Part II Will Not Include Multiplayer

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Factions will not be returning in The Last of Us Part II, which is pretty strange.

Despite some job postings appearing earlier in the year that seemed to all but guarantee The Last of Us Part II would include a multiplayer component, it seems that the game will instead only offer a single-player experience.

Yes, even though the first game included a multiplayer aspect, The Last of Us Part II will not see the return of Factions. The news comes by way of USGamer who had the information given to them by Naughty Dog’s Lead Game Designer Emilia Schatz. “We’re focusing on a single-player experience, so we’re just making a single-player game for this,” Schatz told the publication when asked about multiplayer. Sony themselves confirmed that The Last of Us Part II wouldn’t contain multiplayer as well saying, “Correct, it is a single player game.”

This is really strange to see considering, as I mentioned before, Naughty Dog seemed to actively be hiring a lot of key positions to work on the multiplayer aspect of The Last of Us Part II earlier this year. Plus, Naughty Dog themselves had said previously that multiplayer would be in the game. To me, this means that there were clear plans for Factions to return, but the mode was likely canceled. Based on my own estimation, part of the reason why this could have happened is to ensure that the game could release sooner.

Regardless of what the truth of the situation is though, it really is a shame to not see multiplayer returning this time around. Even though the original The Last of Us was never the biggest multiplayer game, Factions truly felt like something different than everything else on the market at the time. It would have been interesting to see how it would’ve evolved in this sequel.

Still, I imagine many who are anticipating The Last of Us Part II will just be happy to see where the single-player narrative goes next. Luckily, we won’t have to wait too long to see what that story will be, either, as the game is set to arrive on PS4 on February 21, 2020.