The last of me

Terrible title, I know.

I come with quite the curious little tidbit, not exactly new news but a pretty impactful update on the direction of Playstation through one of their flagship studios: Naughty Dog. Playstation of course maintains a dominate lead on the market of console gaming which is propped up partially by the supremacy which is their cadre of first party developers making exclusive titles that drop on their platforms months and sometimes years in advance of the PC launch. There was a time when they also had a stranglehold on the high budget Japanese market as well, but thankfully that has become unwound in recent years. Still, those core development teams and their identifying franchises, Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc. through the way they operate we can ascertain a decent idea on Sony's overall game plan in the coming years.

Which is why it was oh-so upsetting to hear that Sony were throwing their weight behind the Live Service model, a genre of games which has failed to put out an unblemished masterpiece in it's entire existence. (Even it's long standing heroes like Destiny 2 ended up collapsing under it's own weight after a while, it's just a poison of a game genre!) Leaked reports claimed that Sony were mandating double digits of new live services out of their first party developers in the current console generation and the vanguard of this initiative would have been forced into the laps of The Last of Us with a 'Factions' spin off game. Based on the online component of the original 'The Last of Us' which was very well received for what it was, Factions sought to expand on that concept enough to support a replayable, season passed up, infinite money generator reimagining. And it was a sad state of affairs.

Not that the concept itself was at all wrong, I suppose. There was a surprising amount of love for the original online mode, even if the DLC weapon pack totally destroyed the balance of every other gun in the game- squashing high level play into the single archetype state which made Gears online so boring to invest into. (I know Gears has it's avid and rapid online fans, but I've tried three times to get into it- I just can't bring myself to care about shotgun/sawn-off metas.) Bringing that back made sense, and given that it's now illegal to put an online mode in a single player game or something, a spin-off standalone seemed... fine. Not a brilliant leap forward for the narrative driven world of The Last of Us, but not a complete cop-out for the sake of nothing. Still, the very nature of a Live Service is voracious. It is born to take more and more until you are bled dry. Was that really the kind of franchise The Last of Us should become?

Well it would seem that we were not the only one's with concerns given that, in a shock announcement, Naughty Dog recently announced the cancellation of The Last of Us Factions, in some politely scathing statements which kind of spits in the face of Live Services as a whole. So does this mean a shift in policy might be coming Playstation's way as they realise they are better off sticking within the means that have served them well rather than risk it all on embarrassing live service 'plays'?  Naughty Dog are market leaders, afterall- something like this does not fly by in a vacuum. An announcement like that whittles down trust in the concept and threatens to sully any future live service marketing efforts. So what does it all mean on the larger scale?

What Factions represented is exactly what FIFA represents when it comes to the implementation of money sucking marketing tricks- an easy trick. The reason why all the gaming world rallies to kick the FIFA games in the nads everytime it tries to sneak some horribly exploitative nonsense isn't because we care about the wel being of FIFA enjoyers, it's because we know that audience is too oblivious to make a fuss themselves when they're being robbed, and because history has shown that whatever is proven successful in sports games soon becomes ported over to our games given time. Sports gamers are essentially Guinea pigs subjected to experiments that their tiny brains are too simple to comprehend, thus making them a low-risk test market. The Last of Us Factions would have been that low risk market for the Live Service plan, to prove how feasible of a future this really is for Sony's game development efforts.

Naughty Dog must know how drastically they're effecting the bottom line of Sony's plan from the wording of their cancellation announcement. Of course the company is diplomatic, they'd be insane not to be, but one needn't be a professional linguist to interpret the raised brow behind some of the words. Such as how Naughty Dog frame this cancellation as making a choice between sticking to their high quality narrative excellence for which they're known, or dedicating a giant chunk of their production efforts to the maintenance of this live service. Of course they knew about this cost going on, they'd be fools not to know, but by highlighting the contention point they make the distinction unmissable. They essentially say their choices are either 'quality' or 'maintenance' and they chose quality. As influential as they are, those are words that will have an effect.

Whatsmore, this is no idle chucking away of a half baked idea. This game was actually 'in' production for a decent chunk of time. Developers mourned the loss of a year or so of work after the announcement, bemoaning an idea that was good, but not worth the investment. There's quite some world of difference between changing plans and scrapping others, the latter can prove disastrous for many out there. It takes quite the force of will (and a large financial cushion) to have the freedom to be able to go out and just do that. It also, rather pointedly, is not the kind of decision that one can take back. It's just like one of those important moments in a VN where the disclaimer 'This choice will have serious consequences' flashes on screen and you just know the world is going to have something to say on this one.

And as you can predictably expect from someone like me- I applaud them. Completely and utterly! Live Services have been a plague on creativity just as Survival games were before them, and if they're allowed to fester any longer than TES VI is going to have to become one by laws of Bethesda market chasing. For such a significant development studio to be placed in the spotlight of that world and for them to reject the concept so utterly is such a beautiful damning indictment that I can't help but clap for the spectacle alone. Not that I think we're free. Sony will not rest without publishing at least a single Live Service in the next year, but it won't be The Last of Us brand which gets muddied in the scramble and that small gratis is worth smiling over. Thank you for being a stubborn old Naughty Dog, team.