In a tweet, the studio Naughty Dog announced that they are looking for developers for a new game. These new employees are to focus on the studio’s first standalone multiplayer game. It could be a standalone game set in The Last of Us Part II.
What kind of game will this be? Not much is currently known about the new game from Naughty Dog. Besides the fact that it is supposed to be a standalone multiplayer title, co-game director Vinit Agarwal shared on Twitter the following:
We are urgently looking for new employees. Apply if you want to help make our standalone multiplayer action game a cinematic experience between players.
According to Agarwal, it will be an action game, and from the cinematic experience, it can be deduced that story and impressive visuals will play a role. This also fits the developer studio, which has created two iconic game franchises, Uncharted and The Last of Us, that value exactly these aspects.
Among others, they are looking for the following for the game:
- Gameplay scripter,
- Level designer,
- Systems designer
- and AI programmer.
It sounds like the game could be quite extensive and that it is still in a very early stage.
Could it become the multiplayer for The Last of Us 2? At the beginning of 2020, the developers announced a multiplayer mode for The Last of Us Part II, which was to be released after the release. However, it was not yet clear whether this would appear as an update, in the form of a DLC, or as a standalone game.
Whether this standalone game is the multiplayer of The Last of Us Part II has neither been confirmed nor denied.
Naughty Dog already has experience with multiplayer, but not as a standalone
How much experience does the studio have with multiplayer? Naughty Dog has considerable experience with multiplayer content:
- In The Last of Us 1 from 2013, there is a multiplayer mode called Factions, where players could compete against each other in 4v4 matches spread over multiple matches.
- Uncharted 4 received a co-op mode at the end of 2016, which brought its own progression system.
However, the studio has not yet developed a completely standalone game that is solely based on multiplayer.
What would you like to see as a multiplayer title from Naughty Dog? A game in the universe of The Last of Us, Uncharted, or a completely new world? Feel free to share it in the comments.
