TLOU Factions 2 is Done, Sony and Naughty Dog in Shambles

[Coal Man]

Despite hit ratings for the recent HBO adaptation of The Last Of Us, a multiplayer spin-off for the zombie shooter based on the first game’s Factions mode has struggled in development. Bloomberg reported in June that Sony had diverted resources away from the project following a negative internal review by Bungie, the recently acquired live-service powerhouse behind Destiny 2. One source now tells Kotaku that the multiplayer game, while not completely canceled, is basically on ice at this point.

https://kotaku.com/naughty-dog-ps5-p...ffs-1850893794

Oof.

TLDR: Sony thought that despite being far ahead for a reason, their best bet was to "subvert expectations" and copy everyone beneath them by switching to GAAS games. It is now biting them in the ass, leading to canceled projects, increased PSN prices, studio layoffs, no new single player games to show and massive fan backlash.

[phaginator]

YES! Great news, Ryan Geting the fck out was the beginning.

Hope they come to their senses and dump the GAAS, multiplayer garbage

[bongowongo]

imagine being a sonycel and taking L after L .... just LOL

[freeburn]

All they had to do was release it as a solid completed multiplayer experience and the rest would have fallen into place.

I honestly don't think they should have had Bungie throw in their input. Bungie makes a good loot and shoot, but destiny's pvp side of multiplayer is dogchit and dead as ****. Not sure why they think Bungie is so insightful when the best thing they did was halo 20 years ago.

[Coal Man]

YES! Great news, Ryan Geting the fck out was the beginning.

Hope they come to their senses and dump the GAAS, multiplayer garbage

imagine being a sonycel and taking L after L .... just LOL

I don't see why they couldn't just leave the single player teams to do what they do best and let the new studios handle the multiplayer spinoffs.

Bungie: Marathon
Firesprite: Horizon Multiplayer with some help from Guerrilla
Deviation: TLOU Factions with some help from ND

That's 3 solid titles that fans would have a connection to and could be big hits. Why did they need a dozen of them to tie up their main devs so hard lmao. What a dumb move, we have no clue and no hype for the next 2 years because of this.

[OneLegSquats]

Brainlets in this subforum call me a Sony fanboy but I happily chit on this series. In my mind everything after TLOU 1 is fake and literally ghey. Neil Cuckman can get gang graped by a bunch of men in skirts, fk TLOU and gives us Days Gone 2

[Coal Man]

Brainlets in this subforum call me a Sony fanboy but I happily chit on this series. In my mind everything after TLOU 1 is fake and literally ghey. Neil Cuckman can get gang graped by a bunch of men in skirts, fk TLOU and gives us Days Gone 2

They could have done so many different things to get Joel out of the picture...or maybe injure him real bad but they desperately wanted the protag to be a female so they made Joel fuking DUMB and getting himself clubbed. And the weirdest thing is they ruined Ellie by turning her into a butch lesbo raging vengeance fuelled moron while Abby, who you're supposed to hate turns out to be the sane chill one. Lmao I don't even.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Layoffs doesn't sound bad, that could mean it's closed to finished and those contract workers aren't needed.

Is there any real reason to drop Factions 2 when so much money and time has been sunk into it?? They're going to want to make some money off of it. This has happened in the past with other games with long dev times.

If anything this means it's almost done, just have to button up a few things.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Brainlets in this subforum call me a Sony fanboy but I happily chit on this series. In my mind everything after TLOU 1 is fake and literally ghey. Neil Cuckman can get gang graped by a bunch of men in skirts, fk TLOU and gives us Days Gone 2

I didn't buy TLOU 2 on day 1. I bought it maybe 1 year after. Now I'm currently on my 3rd playthrough with the cheats unlocked.

Honestly, the gameplay is damn good. Mindblowing good. The grim rainy environment, the gruesome kills, the infected. The gameplay is GREAT, so much so that the story should be ignored.

[Coal Man]

I didn't buy TLOU 2 on day 1. I bought it maybe 1 year after. Now I'm currently on my 3rd playthrough with the cheats unlocked.

Honestly, the gameplay is damn good. Mindblowing good. The grim rainy environment, the gruesome kills, the infected. The gameplay is GREAT, so much so that the story should be ignored.

Nah despite some questionable story moves, the game itself is cream of the crop in terms of quality. The locations, esp the abandoned water park during the storm or the sky bridges were amazing. Gameplay, animations, characters etc, just fantastic.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Nah despite some questionable story moves, the game itself is cream of the crop in terms of quality. The locations, esp the abandoned water park during the storm or the sky bridges were amazing. Gameplay, animations, characters etc, just fantastic.

I just hope Factions 2 is coming soon. They've sunk too much time and money for them not to release it. They definitely want to recoup some of the costs.

[CrimsonSteel]

The Last of Cucks

[nkiritsis13]

All they had to do was release it as a solid completed multiplayer experience and the rest would have fallen into place.

I honestly don't think they should have had Bungie throw in their input. Bungie makes a good loot and shoot, but destiny's pvp side of multiplayer is dogchit and dead as ****. Not sure why they think Bungie is so insightful when the best thing they did was halo 20 years ago.

I never got into Destiny so I'll take your word for the pvp side, but as an outsider, it makes sense because the only time I hear any noise about the game is whenever there is a new expansion, which is clearly more focused on story/loot/raids.

So with that in mind, you're right, it's really weird how Sony is treating Bungie's word like gospel when Sony wants to get into multiplayer games-as-a-service, but if there is one area about Destiny that I never hear praise (I guess outside of blind fanboys?) is towards their actual "GAAS" implementation. The picture I get is that people are only there for the gameplay despite Bungie bending them over a new, shiny barrel at every opportunity. "Sunsetting" Deleting content people paid for and apparently explains whatever convoluted lore salad bullschit they make up as they go along is utter insanity, but even more so when their reasoning could boil down to their own incompetency/rubbish tech.

I don't see why they couldn't just leave the single player teams to do what they do best and let the new studios handle the multiplayer spinoffs.

Bungie: Marathon
Firesprite: Horizon Multiplayer with some help from Guerrilla
Deviation: TLOU Factions with some help from ND

That's 3 solid titles that fans would have a connection to and could be big hits. Why did they need a dozen of them to tie up their main devs so hard lmao. What a dumb move, we have no clue and no hype for the next 2 years because of this.

Sony's whole multiplayer/GAAS shift makes them come across as clueless, but especially in regards to their own cache of titles that would have been able to branch out into multiplayer while not completely alienating their main audience.

- Twisted Metal: no, instead they made this zoomer bait that nobody even remembers and Sony probably doesn't even want to associate themselves with anymore.

- SOCOM and MAG: when you think about just how Call-of-Duty-centric Sony (and the FTC for some reason) was during the Microsoft-Activision acquisition, bringing back military shooters seems like such an obvious call. Even just a SOCOM COD copycat would be smarter than... Wish.com Splatoon? They could include a good campaign mode to again not completely put off people who are interested in single player titles. I remember Call of Duty 4 (the original) had such a good single player that I, someone who preferred single player, actually dove into the multiplayer.

- Killzone and Resistance: more traditional games where they had prominent single player modes alongside multiplayer. Imagine how insane a new Killzone could be with the power of modern tech considering just how well Killzone 2 and 3 held up. Reboot that bitch and don't blow up Helghan.

As for Resistance, there is just so much you could do with the setting of an alternate history WWII period interrupted by aliens.

- The Order 1886: Old timey Gears of War, boom.

Aside from catering to a wider type of audience, another huge benefit of balancing single player and multiplayer is that you're already creating all of the assets for one mode, so you can recycle it for the other.

They could have done so many different things to get Joel out of the picture...or maybe injure him real bad but they desperately wanted the protag to be a female so they made Joel fuking DUMB and getting himself clubbed. And the weirdest thing is they ruined Ellie by turning her into a butch lesbo raging vengeance fuelled moron while Abby, who you're supposed to hate turns out to be the sane chill one. Lmao I don't even.

I don't know why, but I figured that Joel would be killed off eventually, but not in a totally retarded, "fukk you" to the fans sort of way.

It blows me away that anyone can actually excuse any of it unless they share having the mentality of a 14 year old with Druckman because it's all the most illogical, emotionally driven drivel. I remember reading Druck's sorry, estrogenic epiphany that "inspired" his dumbass apocalypse revenge-is-good-but-really-not thesis, and I'm still in a bit of disbelief that anyone would share that dear diary crock to the world. None of it can actually work when the fundamental game mechanics necessary to progress are contradictory to his daft message 99% of the time unless it's specifically in the script.

Also, just lol at shoehorning in a tranny during a zombie apocalypse. I mean, holy schit. Only an avocado toast eating, oblivious, isolated Californian could imagine having a sexual identity crisis while a bunch of mushroom cannibals are trying to reassign your face to their intestines.

I never got into TLOU, it just never had its hooks in me, but I could at least understand the first game's premise of a broken man finding a surrogate daughter in a hopeless post-apocalypse that eventually leads to him to discard his original mission to hold onto that new relationship. It's really a perfect story all on its own, and I think it's the kind where ending it would be more satisfying enough. Nothing would have stopped them from finding a completely different "last of us" and focus on their journey in this world they created. Well, nothing except the lead is a spiteful, jealous manchild who had to retrofit the first game to be his now that the main creatives who built it have left the company.

[Coal Man]

I don't know why, but I figured that Joel would be killed off eventually, but not in a totally retarded, "fukk you" to the fans sort of way.

It blows me away that anyone can actually excuse any of it unless they share having the mentality of a 14 year old with Druckman because it's all the most illogical, emotionally driven drivel. I remember reading Druck's sorry, estrogenic epiphany that "inspired" his dumbass apocalypse revenge-is-good-but-really-not thesis, and I'm still in a bit of disbelief that anyone would share that dear diary crock to the world. None of it can actually work when the fundamental game mechanics necessary to progress are contradictory to his daft message 99% of the time unless it's specifically in the script.

Also, just lol at shoehorning in a tranny during a zombie apocalypse. I mean, holy schit. Only an avocado toast eating, oblivious, isolated Californian could imagine having a sexual identity crisis while a bunch of mushroom cannibals are trying to reassign your face to their intestines.

I never got into TLOU, it just never had its hooks in me, but I could at least understand the first game's premise of a broken man finding a surrogate daughter in a hopeless post-apocalypse that eventually leads to him to discard his original mission to hold onto that new relationship. It's really a perfect story all on its own, and I think it's the kind where ending it would be more satisfying enough. Nothing would have stopped them from finding a completely different "last of us" and focus on their journey in this world they created. Well, nothing except the lead is a spiteful, jealous manchild who had to retrofit the first game to be his now that the main creatives who built it have left the company.

Here's the thing, I'm fine with Joel leaving at some point but they have to realise that it couldn't be at the beginning of the second game, and also done in a really stupid and classless way. I don't think you played it but after game 1, Joel is basically worshipped as a leader of the settlement and known for his wisdom and abilities. Everyone knows to not fuk with that guy, or his brother who is also a beast.

When part 2 starts, he and his bro are out on a scouting party and notice a girl getting attacked by a horde. They swoop in and save her ass. She's grateful and invites them back in her camp to recover. For the entire of the first game, Joel constantly makes it a lesson for Ellie to not trust strangers. The game SHOWS you this lesson numerous times. Joel and his bro accept the offer to go back to her camp when it wasn't necessary at all. Worst of all, they gave the bunch of strangers their actual names! Fans were mad because Joel should know better. Lo and behold, that girl they saved was the very one who had expeditioned to the settlement in hopes to kill Joel in the first place. She didn't know for sure if he was there. She obviously didn't even know if he was still alive or what he looked like. What a big fuking coincidence that everything lined up so conveniently for her to just capture him.

Also, to make a correction... The "tranny" is that same girl, Abby. She isn't trans, it's just a thing gamers made up to chit on the game for the LGBT stuff. She's a straight female and is very feminine despite her hatred for Joel. Her settlement has a gym and gives her a steady supply of testosterone tho, which imo isn't realistic in that setting. Druckman could have toned down her buffness a few notches.

The real LGBT stuff is them turning Ellie gay and having a teen love romance with her and another girl in the settlement.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Here's the thing, I'm fine with Joel leaving at some point but they have to realise that it couldn't be at the beginning of the second game, and also done in a really stupid and classless way. I don't think you played it but after game 1, Joel is basically worshipped as a leader of the settlement and known for his wisdom and abilities. Everyone knows to not fuk with that guy, or his brother who is also a beast. When part 2 starts, he and his bro are out on a scouting party and notice a girl getting attacked by a horde. They swoop in and save her ass. She's grateful and invites them back in her camp to recover. For the entire of the first game, Joel constantly makes it a lesson for Ellie to not trust strangers. The game SHOWS you this when betrayed happens to them numerous times. Joel and his bro accepts the offer to go back to her camp when it wasn't necessary at all. Worst of all, they gave the bunch of strangers their actual names! Lo and behold, that girl they saved was the very one who had expeditioned to the settlement in hopes to infiltrate and kill Joel in the first place. She didn't even know for sure if he was there, it was just a hunch. What a big fuking coincidence that everything lined up so conveniently for them to just capture and off him right there.

Also, to make a correction... The "tranny" is that same girl, Abby. She isn't trans, it's just a thing gamers made up to chit on the game for the LGBT stuff. She's a straight female and is very feminine despite her hatred for Joel. Her settlement has a gym and gives her a steady supply of testosterone tho, which imo isn't realistic in that setting. Druckman could have toned down her buffness a few notches.

Abby was a beast LMAO

[Coal Man]

Abby was a beast LMAO

In b4 Metrobrah

[mgftp]

All they had to do was release it as a solid completed multiplayer experience and the rest would have fallen into place.

I honestly don't think they should have had Bungie throw in their input. Bungie makes a good loot and shoot, but destiny's pvp side of multiplayer is dogchit and dead as ****. Not sure why they think Bungie is so insightful when the best thing they did was halo 20 years ago.

All of this.

All they had to do was release the exact same thing the first Factions was, updated in TLoU2 engine and chit. Sometimes people try to hard and ruin a thing that was already proven good.

Fawk, I'd kill for a version of the first Factions with the Remake love they gave TLoUP1 at this point.

Layoffs doesn't sound bad, that could mean it's closed to finished and those contract workers aren't needed.

Is there any real reason to drop Factions 2 when so much money and time has been sunk into it?? They're going to want to make some money off of it. This has happened in the past with other games with long dev times.

If anything this means it's almost done, just have to button up a few things.

Also, all this. Nothing here to me indicates the game is dead or cancelled.

[Singularity7]

Here's the thing, I'm fine with Joel leaving at some point but they have to realise that it couldn't be at the beginning of the second game, and also done in a really stupid and classless way. I don't think you played it but after game 1, Joel is basically worshipped as a leader of the settlement and known for his wisdom and abilities. Everyone knows to not fuk with that guy, or his brother who is also a beast.

When part 2 starts, he and his bro are out on a scouting party and notice a girl getting attacked by a horde. They swoop in and save her ass. She's grateful and invites them back in her camp to recover. For the entire of the first game, Joel constantly makes it a lesson for Ellie to not trust strangers. The game SHOWS you this lesson numerous times. Joel and his bro accept the offer to go back to her camp when it wasn't necessary at all. Worst of all, they gave the bunch of strangers their actual names! Fans were mad because Joel should know better. Lo and behold, that girl they saved was the very one who had expeditioned to the settlement in hopes to kill Joel in the first place. She didn't know for sure if he was there. She obviously didn't even know if he was still alive or what he looked like. What a big fuking coincidence that everything lined up so conveniently for her to just capture him.

Also, to make a correction... The "tranny" is that same girl, Abby. She isn't trans, it's just a thing gamers made up to chit on the game for the LGBT stuff. She's a straight female and is very feminine despite her hatred for Joel. Her settlement has a gym and gives her a steady supply of testosterone tho, which imo isn't realistic in that setting. Druckman could have toned down her buffness a few notches.

The real LGBT stuff is them turning Ellie gay and having a teen love romance with her and another girl in the settlement.

I'm eternally rustled they did Joel like that and then you have dick riders for Cuckman defending everything. It's literally a masterpiece to them.

[bongowongo]

I don't see why they couldn't just leave the single player teams to do what they do best and let the new studios handle the multiplayer spinoffs.

Bungie: Marathon
Firesprite: Horizon Multiplayer with some help from Guerrilla
Deviation: TLOU Factions with some help from ND

That's 3 solid titles that fans would have a connection to and could be big hits. Why did they need a dozen of them to tie up their main devs so hard lmao. What a dumb move, we have no clue and no hype for the next 2 years because of this.

Yeah, it could have easily just as been a multiplayer mode as part of tlou2 and probably a really good one at that if they didn't bother to make it into a live service or have it so ambitious. That was one of Jimbo's mistake though, pivoting too much into this live service nonsense.


Guaranteed that the game was actually pretty damn good/fun, but just because it didn't meet the some "live service" standard that the whole thing was scrapped.

Ghost of sushima legends was proof that you could still have made a really fun multiplayer game that breathes life into the base game without necessarily having to make it some on-going service. Not every game need's to be continuously replayable for years and years.

[LtGoose]

Pretty obvious they couldn't find a way to make the game gay while still being a shooter because they don't want gheys to die. Their focus group testing all points to the same conclusion, FPS gamers don't want to play as a trannies.

[taskmob]

Eh, not a total loss. We got a stacked year up ahead with FOAMSTARS leading the way.



































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LMFAO!!!!

[taskmob]

Layoffs doesn't sound bad, that could mean it's closed to finished and those contract workers aren't needed.

Is there any real reason to drop Factions 2 when so much money and time has been sunk into it?? They're going to want to make some money off of it. This has happened in the past with other games with long dev times.

If anything this means it's almost done, just have to button up a few things.

LMFAO Sonycels Cope:

"Here's why layoffs is actually a good thing!!!"

[Akd123]

they should of just done what ive been saying for years and done a prequel when Joel was basically a raider and doing fuked up chit to survive.cant imagine any Joel fan would be against that.done care about multiplayer but why didnt they just include it in the main game like the first one?sounds like they really shot themselves in the foot with this one

[nkiritsis13]

Here's the thing, I'm fine with Joel leaving at some point but they have to realise that it couldn't be at the beginning of the second game, and also done in a really stupid and classless way. I don't think you played it but after game 1, Joel is basically worshipped as a leader of the settlement and known for his wisdom and abilities. Everyone knows to not fuk with that guy, or his brother who is also a beast.

When part 2 starts, he and his bro are out on a scouting party and notice a girl getting attacked by a horde. They swoop in and save her ass. She's grateful and invites them back in her camp to recover. For the entire of the first game, Joel constantly makes it a lesson for Ellie to not trust strangers. The game SHOWS you this lesson numerous times. Joel and his bro accept the offer to go back to her camp when it wasn't necessary at all. Worst of all, they gave the bunch of strangers their actual names! Fans were mad because Joel should know better. Lo and behold, that girl they saved was the very one who had expeditioned to the settlement in hopes to kill Joel in the first place. She didn't know for sure if he was there. She obviously didn't even know if he was still alive or what he looked like. What a big fuking coincidence that everything lined up so conveniently for her to just capture him.

I didn't know about Joel's reputation after the first game, but even I knew about how he was extremely guarded, passing that onto Ellie in order to survive.

But then the sequel disregards all of that vital characterization just for a series of unfortunate coincidence to line up in order for Neil's "I am very deep" narrative to even take off.

You know what's even better? Naughty Dog knew that the premise of a post-apocalyptic revenge plot was dumb, but that was back when there were people there to shut down his stupid ideas:

"What's interesting is that, originally in the story Tess took more of a villain role," Druckmann said. "Tess was betrayed by Joel and took on a mission to pursue him across the country. That storyline never worked out. The storyline shifted and Tess took on this role where she became more of a believer and she helped motivate Joel."

Apparently it was for this reason that the story was changed; the team at Naughty Dog didn't believe that Joel would take on this gargantuan task without something motivating him, like Tess sacrificing herself.

"We had a tough time understanding why Joel would take this journey - we weren't buying it," he continues. "We also had a hard time buying that Tess would go on a vendetta. We could understand her pursuing Joel a little bit, but why would she go for a year around the country? Those things were solved by saying that Tess is going to die when she gets bitten, but her dying wish to Joel is to do this one good thing - help me do this one good thing so my soul can rest because I've done all these horrible things."
https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08...llain-revealed

Even if you set aside the impracticality of revenge in a post-apocalypse because it could work without relying on coincidence and happenstance if there was compelling writing behind it, there are far greater sins of not only having the entire ordeal culminate in Ellie just walking away, but never giving the player choices, and in fact forcing the player to act counterintuitively to this end the entire way.

What really takes the piss is how the creators of part 2 are far up their own asses with its "cinematic storytelling" when Duckman's entire "cYcLe Of ViOlEnC" thesis completely falls apart in the face of ludonarrative dissonance whereby the player is required to go full rampage - up until the script says to stop and reflect inwards.

You wind up with the video game equivalent to one of the most asinine tropes in cinema where the hero manages to murder hordes of goons up until the final confrontation, only to show mercy on the prick who hired all of those dead bastards and ordered them to go after the hero in the first place. It's almost even more daft in a video game because the player is having a blast rolling through all of those mooks.

Overall it's a criticism I hold towards many games in general where they continue failing to capitalize on the medium's greatest advantage of giving the player agency in the story. I really wish game studios would take a step back from the "cinematic storytelling" approach that has only trended more towards locked in narratives instead of embracing the possibilities of branching options, allowing the player to make choices that contradict even what the writers want, and actually being able to mistakes.

Also, to make a correction... The "tranny" is that same girl, Abby. She isn't trans, it's just a thing gamers made up to chit on the game for the LGBT stuff. She's a straight female and is very feminine despite her hatred for Joel. Her settlement has a gym and gives her a steady supply of testosterone tho, which imo isn't realistic in that setting. Druckman could have toned down her buffness a few notches.

The real LGBT stuff is them turning Ellie gay and having a teen love romance with her and another girl in the settlement.

Oh, As much of a joke Abby is, I know she isn't actually tranny, she's just ludicrously and unrealistically built off a diet of burritos and apparently zebra steroids her dad had stashed.

I'm talking about the Asian kid she takes in because they needed a new Joel-Ellie relationship:



It's like they made an even dumber choice because it's a kid who was presumably born into the apocalypse, or would have been too young to know anything beyond mushroom people who will eat your face. Who in the hell has time for such an absurd, forced backstory during the apocalypse?

Back to Abby, I vaguely recall an earlier depiction of her before the final version where she didn't look outrageous and she retained a more feminine look.

As for Ellie, I never cared either way (couldn't care less about a teen romance shoved into a zombie apocalypse, whatever. Still kinda weird they chose to pursue some teenage love story just in general), but I think that evolved into a means to distract from how her character was also assassinated and shield those changes from criticism under blanket "istaphobia."

I really get the impression Neil was trying to retroactively sabotage the first game with every little decision out of spite. Even the hospital was retconned to look clean and Abby's dad no longer looks like he was dipping into the morphine:

Spoiler!

She became an unlikable, resentful, ungrateful, wannabe-martyr out of the blue, undermining the original's more ambiguous resolution between Joel and Elli, while also being another silly choice if they're going to focus the second game on her relationship with her new girlfriend (so, you wanted to die at the hands of some scalpel-happy quake in a makeshift motel 6, or do you want to have a corny, slow dance?).

Seriously, I have no idea how this Druckman guy gets so much fanfare because even a cursory bit of looking into the TLOU drama was enough to fill me in on what a enormously conceited twatwaffle the guy is, riding off the talent from everyone else who was ever around him.

Yeah, it could have easily just as been a multiplayer mode as part of tlou2 and probably a really good one at that if they didn't bother to make it into a live service or have it so ambitious. That was one of Jimbo's mistake though, pivoting too much into this live service nonsense.


Guaranteed that the game was actually pretty damn good/fun, but just because it didn't meet the some "live service" standard that the whole thing was scrapped.

Ghost of sushima legends was proof that you could still have made a really fun multiplayer game that breathes life into the base game without necessarily having to make it some on-going service. Not every game need's to be continuously replayable for years and years.

True, and it really goes to show how the obsession with live services has been bane to the medium.

Like you will never see a game just toss in a multiplayer mode for fun, only for it to wind up being a smash hit. Devs/publishers need this convoluted twenty point plan on how to hook people in an attempt to extract as much money out of them as possible instead of allowing the fun to just happen organically. I doubt that Naughty Dog knew that the original factions mode would be a hit with people, and from everything I've seen it's at least the actual gameplay and mechanics that people seem to generally praise in the sequel regardless of how they feel on the rest.

If anything the fact that the game's story was divisive and it wasn't received nearly as well as the first game should have actually been enough of a reason to push forward with a story-less multiplayer mode just to help drive some more interest and sales. But no, after investing lord knows how many resources and man hours into Factions 2, they're going to throw it all away for zero return of any kind because Bungie wasn't satisfied with the inability to cram in battle passes, FOMO, RNG loot drops, and premium wacky dances.

[SirFapsAIot]

All of this.

All they had to do was release the exact same thing the first Factions was, updated in TLoU2 engine and chit. Sometimes people try to hard and ruin a thing that was already proven good.

Fawk, I'd kill for a version of the first Factions with the Remake love they gave TLoUP1 at this point.



Also, all this. Nothing here to me indicates the game is dead or cancelled.

local ND fan boi / ND cock gobbler on suicide watch

[Deathstroke]

I thought by done you meant “complete” as in they finished it and it’s launching soon, that was a mean trick. You can forget about that kiss. (No homo)

I was ready to put together a very fast paced extreme metal and rap playlist and order some of those ABB high ephedra drinks. So I can be in top form. And patch people up left and right . (No teabagging)

[bongowongo]

True, and it really goes to show how the obsession with live services has been bane to the medium.

Like you will never see a game just toss in a multiplayer mode for fun, only for it to wind up being a smash hit. Devs/publishers need this convoluted twenty point plan on how to hook people in an attempt to extract as much money out of them as possible instead of allowing the fun to just happen organically. I doubt that Naughty Dog knew that the original factions mode would be a hit with people, and from everything I've seen it's at least the actual gameplay and mechanics that people seem to generally praise in the sequel regardless of how they feel on the rest.

.

Yeah agreed.

Sad thing is, they probably had a very good game on their hands before Bungie said nope according to the reports. It could have even released in its current as a standalone and still got prolly a good year or 2 ... maybe 3 if we're being optimistic and it would have been completely fine and well received.


Oh well, I'm not crying over it. The quicker ND puts all their resources back into being goated sp games the better, rather than chasing stupid mp trends/games which the studio has never been known for.

[MikeLowrrrey]

LMFAO Sonycels Cope:

"Here's why layoffs is actually a good thing!!!"

Honestly though, is it not near completion with people leaving? Why cancel the game with so much talent, time, and money? The gameplay is probably great, the core of Supply raid, is already there.

There's really no good reason to cancel it.

[Coal Man]

@nkiritsis

Spoiler!

As a fan, my first instinct is to continue to write a story around the thing that got me hooked on the story in the first place: the father/daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie. Instead, their baffling decision was to completely flip that on its head to make Ellie the main character and to do so they needed to get Joel out of the picture.

I can totally see this happening but do it in a smart way for fuks sake. You can't have him being killed right in the BEGINNING by a new playable character who you're later supposed to feel sympathy for and you can't have it done it a way that trivializes Joel's honed decision making and physical abilities. It completely cheapens the experience and just makes you feel weird for the rest of the playthrough. That chit was just like modern Star Wars or Game of Thrones all over again....dumbing down the strong established characters to make way for the new ones.

So what we then have is in the very beginning of the game, the adults being removed and you're left playing as a bunch of teens for the rest of the game. It's easy to see how the dynamics are switched up from a more serious and careful tone to a bunch of emotional retards doing a bunch of emotionally retarded chit. An example being Dina being preggo as fuk and going out to fight a gang of lunatics. Oh, and did you know she's now with Ellie who is shocked to find out Dina got pregnant by her ex who is how on his way to help everyone out? Can't wait to find out more about this new love triangle in the middle of a brutal revenge arc in the middle of a brutal zombie apocalypse, Jesus Christ.


And hey, at the "end" of the game she had a crazy revenge phase but she learned her lesson after her mortal enemy spared her life. Now she can spend it with Dina and her baby in that beautiful house. I guess she learned her living family was of utmost importance at the end and the crazy trauma was not worth the cost....right?

LOL, except no. She decided to go back out there and find Abby again. Like bruh, what are these decision making choices and why does no one care about the fuking zombie apocalypse anymore?

[nkiritsis13]

Yeah agreed.

Sad thing is, they probably had a very good game on their hands before Bungie said nope according to the reports. It could have even released in its current as a standalone and still got prolly a good year or 2 ... maybe 3 if we're being optimistic and it would have been completely fine and well received.


Oh well, I'm not crying over it. The quicker ND puts all their resources back into being goated sp games the better, rather than chasing stupid mp trends/games which the studio has never been known for.

Based on how Naughty Dog operates, they seem like one of the last studios to have work on an extremely live service oriented game/mode, which sounds like the direction they were going based early rumors and the principle monetization designer, who worked on Fortnite's battle pass system.

They're known for taking their time like most of Sony's roster, and a heavy live service title is the diametric opposite of taking things slow. If it really is canned, then it might be for the best because they would be tied up constantly just maintaining such a title instead of working on anything else. The rub is that if it isn't cancelled, lord knows how Bungie could have poisoned the well to make it worse for the players and their wallets, because that's basically what their report really meant.

@nkiritsis

Spoiler!

As a fan, my first instinct is to continue to write a story around the thing that got me hooked on the story in the first place: the father/daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie. Instead, their baffling decision was to completely flip that on its head to make Ellie the main character and to do so they needed to get Joel out of the picture.

I can totally see this happening but do it in a smart way for fuks sake. You can't have him being killed right in the BEGINNING by a new playable character who you're later supposed to feel sympathy for and you can't have it done it a way that trivializes Joel's honed decision making and physical abilities. It completely cheapens the experience and just makes you feel weird for the rest of the playthrough. That chit was just like modern Star Wars or Game of Thrones all over again....dumbing down the strong established characters to make way for the new ones.

Spoiler!

Precisely! That surrogate father-daughter relationship was the hook and even I, a casual observer, can understand that vital component. You can easily relate to this core dynamic in such a way that the game is in essence about that relationship with the backdrop of a zombie post-apocalypse.

Neil did what those other franchises you mentioned love to do by "subverting expectations," when that emotional storytelling was the subversion! Good luck getting your average gamer invested in a father who lost everything and is left cynical and bitter eventually rekindling the sort of relationship he lost in the beginning.

The most common response to Joel's murder at the start is resentment towards Abby and an unwillingness to go along with their whole sympathy, two sides of every story angle. Even if they built up Abby well before having her cross paths with Joel, which still would have been a questionable way to go, I see zero way that they could strike lightning in a bottle to make Abby sympathetic enough for players to be conflicted about her quest for revenge. Everything I've seen and read about her really does not do her any favors, and if that was Naughty Dog's idea of a "sympathetic character," then they already lost the plot. Like how she is going to enjoy killing Ellie's pregnant girlfriend, seducing a married man, or just murdering Joel in front of Ellie to the sound of her screams.

Besides that tall order, the problem with even trying to do a "two sides of every story" spin is that this is plain not the game to even try proselytizing about empathizing with the victim when there would be countless other people in Abby's shoes by the time the first game was through. It's a dumb message to try pushing in a very strictly linear game that requires killing your way through to progress while the player has zero input on the characters' actions.

Maybe if there was some sort of morality system could it work, but that would also entail multiple, branching paths for the story to take and actual repercussions and reactions to how you proceed. Like one of the best examples of a missed opportunity I've seen in critiques regarding the player killing/not killing all of those "named" enemies crying out for each other is how at one point there are a bunch of body bags being shown to Abby. Instead of some of those bodies really being some of those people who were called out after being killed while playing as Ellie, they're just generic.

Spoiler!

So what we then have is in the very beginning of the game, the adults being removed and you're left playing as a bunch of teens for the rest of the game. It's easy to see how the dynamics are switched up from a more serious and careful tone to a bunch of emotional retards doing a bunch of emotionally retarded chit. An example being Dina being preggo as fuk and going out to fight a gang of lunatics. Oh, and did you know she's now with Ellie who is shocked to find out Dina got pregnant by her ex who is how on his way to help everyone out? Can't wait to find out more about this new love triangle in the middle of a brutal revenge arc in the middle of a brutal zombie apocalypse, Jesus Christ.

Spoiler!

Yeah, and now that you mention it, I remember something about how there was another pregnant lady who was going on the front lines for no explicable reason? Part 2 is fascinating with how many boneheaded, ridiculous decisions they made with the characters.

The love triangle boyfriend is another one who I'd imagine left a bad taste in fans' mouths after they bait and switched Joel for him with the trailer.

Spoiler!

And hey, at the "end" of the game she had a crazy revenge phase but she learned her lesson after her mortal enemy spared her life. Now she can spend it with Dina and her baby in that beautiful house. I guess she learned her living family was of utmost importance at the end and the crazy trauma was not worth the cost....right?

LOL, except no. She decided to go back out there and find Abby again. Like bruh, what are these decision making choices and why does no one care about the fuking zombie apocalypse anymore?

Spoiler!

There are so many ways that the whole "message" falls apart, but one that takes the cake is how Abby acts like letting Ellie live was some sort of act of kindness, showing how totally oblivious she is that maybe someone else had lost someone they loved.