The studio has ”separate teams” working on different components so they can ”maintain full focus” on single and multiplayer. The solo action ”hasn’t been skimped out on”, they promise.
Naughty Dog community strategist Arne Meyer told fans that they’ve nothing to fear from the revelation of multiplayer in The Last of Us.
”We don’t approach MP in any of our games as tacked on,” Meyer posted on the US PlayStation.Blog in the comments section. ”And we also always have separate teams working on the different components so that we can maintain full focus on making SP and MP up to our standards.”
”And we have faith that our MP will stand on it’s own. If we felt like it would be tacked on, we wouldn’t have added it. We want all our game experiences to be of the highest quality and that’s what we work extremely hard to deliver.”
He continued, adding that the game has been in the works for a while: ”TLOU has been in preproduction and production for quite some time – the SP portion of the game hasn’t been skimped out on in any way.” No box ticking: ”We don’t develop games or features for bullet points – we make the games we enjoy and we hope you’ll enjoy as well.”
”MP has never taken away resources from the SP game in any of our games, always separate teams, separate resources,” continued the community strategist. ”The folks working on the single player campaign always have the resources and support to complete that portion of the game to the vision they planned for.”
As for the specifics surrounding multiplayer, they’ll be staying quiet ”for a little while longer. Sorry!”
During a piece on the US PlayStation.Blog, Naughty Dog announced two pre-order bundles with the Sights and Sounds Pack offering the official soundtrack, PS3 dynamic theme and two avatars. The GameStop exclusive Survival Pack has bonus multiplayer XP, melee attack booster, extra in-game cash, special customisable items for multiplayer and two special bonus skins for Joel and Ellie once the campaign is completed.
The Last of Us releases on PS3 May 7th, 2013.
