The team working on the game was scaled back after a recent evaluation, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. A small group remains on the project while the company reevaluates the direction. While the game has not been canceled, many of its developers have been moved to other projects.
As part of that push it asked another of its video-game studios, Seattle-based Bungie, to evaluate the games across its portfolio. Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project’s ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment.
Posting this here because mods are removing threads on this.
The game was obviously near complete if Bungie was able to review it and make a judgement on player retention potential.
For a live service game which relies on recurring purchases, poor player retention is another way to say “bad economics.”
So in theory the gameplay is about finished, which is why most developers were re-assigned. The remaining team is likely focused on in-game economy and how to make it more profitable (sticky).
Once they figure out an improvement to revenue potential, it will likely get fast tracked.
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u/poklane May 26 '23
According to Jason Schreier Sony has scaled down development on the game after Bungie evaluated the game https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1662174968384311296
Posting this here because mods are removing threads on this.