The Last of Us Multiplayer May Have Caused Layoffs At PlayStation Visual Arts

Sony is set to layoff staffers at PlayStation Visual Arts, after a pivot on a AAA game. As we will explain below, that AAA game is probably The Last Of Us Multiplayer Game.

John Borba is a product coordinator at PlayStation, with prior experience at IGN and Wizards of the Coast. Last May 27, 2023, he posted this on LinkedIn:

“Sadly, due to a large pivot on the AAA multiplayer game I’ve been working on, there was some restructuring within our studio and I was one among the people let go to support the new budgetary needs.

Basically, the industry is tightening belts all over the place and I ended up where a lot of folks are right now. I love the people I got to work with and the projects I worked on and I’m sure you’ll love them too.”

We hope the best for the staff at PlayStation Visual Arts. We had recently reported that Sony was planning to ramp down work on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game. Jason Schreier revealed from his sources that the project was not quite canceled yet, but it is under reevaluation.

John’s post didn’t mention that the AAA at Sony that was undergoing a pivot was The Last Of Us multiplayer game. The timing certainly makes it likely, but we don’t know if Sony has unannounced games that they have cancelled or ramped down.

Obviously, in the recent PlayStation Showcase, The Last Of Us multiplayer was conspicuous in its absence, but we learned about new Sony projects, including a new game in the 30 year old Marathon franchise, and all new and original IP Fairgame and Concord.

But we do know this. Sony themselves revealed that PlayStation Visual Arts was working on a game with Naughty Dog.

As reported in Video Games Chronicle all the way back in October of 2022, Sony posted a job listing involving the two Sony owned studios.

The listing says: ““Sony PlayStation is building a new internal game development team in partnership with PSS Visual Arts, an award-winning, full-production group, that specializes in Animation, Motion Capture, Cinematics, Art, and Scanning.”

Knowing what we know now, it seems that Sony tried to hire people for the The Last of Us multiplayer project because they knew even back then that Naughty Dog was struggling with their first efforts at a live service game.

It seems, after a few months with that new staff coming it, Sony couldn’t make it work out. And so, Sony has decided to fire people, while they reevaluate what to do with this game.

Sony’s choices stand as an interesting contrast to Microsoft’s choices with Redfall. So far, we hadn’t received word that Arkane Austin would be facing layoffs. Of course, Microsoft also chose to go ahead with releasing Redfall at the state it is currently in, at the price it came in, to the detriment of consumers.

These are obviously also not the only ways game companies like Sony and Microsoft can handle floundering projects. These choices do reflect the cultures behind these two companies in particular.