Details surrounding The Last of Us Part II are still pretty fuzzy. Although we’ve known about the game for well over a year now, we don’t have many concrete specifics involving the story, and we have yet to hear anything concerning the game’s release date. While it seems to be fairly close to release, all fans can do at the moment is speculate and wonder.
We’re also not quite sure what is going on with the multiplayer side of things. While a Naughty Dog representative apparently confirmed that the sequel would have some sort of multiplayer component, nobody has any idea of the size and scale of this previously-promised part of the game. That was back in June of 2018, and, with another year and E3 conference having come and gone without so much as a peep from Sony, it’s becoming more difficult to figure out exactly what’s going on with the game’s development.
Fans initially cried foul when it was discovered that a recent Sony advertisement listed The Last of Us Part II among titles like Days Gone and Spider-Man as games which didn’t include any sort of multiplayer elements. While this may well have been a mistake, the obscurity surrounding the game’s development makes it tough to figure out exactly what’s what at the moment.
Given that there was a multiplayer component packaged in with the original The Last of Us title, it’s not inexplicable to believe that the sequel would follow suit. Subtitled The Last of Us: Factions, the first game’s multiplayer has been celebrated as somewhat of a masterpiece in its own right, and, having launched in 2013 alongside the actual game, it was way ahead of its time.
Factions encouraged teamwork, togetherness, and, in more ways than one, felt a bit like a tighter, more refined version of something like Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. It’s not a battle royale title—it came out far before that craze ever hit the scene—but it heavily emphasized thoughtful play and advanced squad tactics, design elements which are now mainstays of more popular BR shooters.
Unfortunately, the gaming industry has long since moved away from mandatory multiplayer, and The Last of Us doesn’t really seem like the sort of thing that would be conducive to online play. Plus, while some players have clamored for a co-op component to be added to the game, the main campaign is a brooding, lonely experience, and it’s not exactly the sort of thing easily enhanced by a noisy random by your side.
Plus, multiplayer elements in games are now, more than ever, used to facilitate recurrent spending opportunities, and it would be a terrible shame to see another full-on Battle Royale game mode shoehorned in for the sake of selling digital skins, emotes, or even loot boxes. Naughty Dog seems to have far too much report to do something like that, but we once thought that of Bethesda, as well.
Whether it has a multiplayer component or not, The Last of Us Part II is still likely to be a commercial and critical success. If it’s half as beloved as the original, it’ll still be remembered for gaming generations to come. If only Sony and Naughty Dog would give us some more concrete information, then we may not have to wonder exactly what we’re in for in late 2019 or possibly early 2020.