It’s officially been a whole decade since The Last Of Us was released. Feel old yet? The action-adventure game launched on PlayStation 3 (a whole two console generations ago) on June 14, 2013, and developer Naughty Dog is celebrating the milestone – although, fans, don’t get your hopes up for any big announcements.
Taking to Twitter, Naughty Dog honoured the series’ impact, the team behind the games and show, and fan communities globally. However, it was quick to cut to the chase and shoot down any game development announcement hopes.
TLOU fans, we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary by honoring the series’ impact, our studio, and your love for TLOU, and will not be making any game development announcements.
To start, we’re sharing some of our favorite Photo Mode shots you submitted: https://t.co/MKG2X8cwMA
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) June 14, 2023
In lieu of any big reveals or game announcements, the developer instead chose to focus on celebrating the impact of the franchise through a number of blog posts turning both towards the community and devs themselves, as well as a few product and event reveals to keep fans sated.
To accompany the celebration, Dark Horse (the publisher behind The Last Of Us comics) dropped a limited edition Clicker statue from TLOU Part II, sized to scale with previous Joel, Abby, and Ellie with Bow statues, for those of you keen to set up a macabre and accurately-scaled shrine to the games. It’s a pretty gross-looking statue, although, given that’s the goal when recreating a Cordyceps-infected person years after the outbreak, it’s been done well.
Naughty Dog also confirmed its continued partnership with California-based Gallery Nucleus for an upcoming gallery tribute to the franchise, promising more details to come.
The 10-year celebrations comes after the follow-up to The Last of Us multiplayer mode, Factions, was stalled by the developer, citing a need for more time. Originally intended to be a secondary mode in The Last of Us Part II, it grew into a stand-alone project. Shortly after the delay was announced, Bloomberg published a story about the game’s struggles, with sources saying that development had been slowed due to questions raised about the long-term viability of the game by Destiny 2 developer Bungie.
Despite the delays and lack of new updates on the games front, The Last of Us fans have been spoiled for content in the last 12 months, most notably thanks to the HBO adaptation’s release earlier this year (and subsequent confirmation of a season two, although production has been delayed due to the writer’s strike going on in Hollywood).
Leave a Reply