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Naughty Dog's standalone multiplayer game a "cinematic experience between players"

Bartski

Gold Member
Naughty Dog is still "aggressively hiring" dev team members for its yet unannounced MP title everyone suspects will be the successor of TLOU Factions.

After confirming the title is indeed a standalone multiplayer game last June, in a series of tweets shared by team members on the project, the game is referred to in a way that will surely get some people triggered:
a "cinematic experience between players".




Vinit Agarwal was the lead on TLOU Factions, Uncharted 4 multiplayer, as well as previous ND MP modes and is rumored to be the Game Director on the project.

What that actually means we can only speculate before the game is officially revealed, hopefully during the TLOU Day (ex Outbreak Day) 26.09.

Safe to say tho such an expression seems to indicate a direction in line with the studio's previous project strengths, and a way to translate TLOU2's grounded gameplay into a multiplayer context, rather than chasing after multiplayer gaming trends set by PUBG or Fortnite.

Could the game contain single-player components covering Faction backstores?

The "monetization/economy" designer team for the project is also expanding.
 

skit_data

Member
I like this, Sony needs a big multiplayer game and if Naughty Dog can deliver a multiplayer experience on the same level of quality as The Last of Us 1&2 it can become pretty damn big (but not very kids friendly).

The only thing that worries me about Factions 2 is that TLOU2 was brutal, like really offputting violence, and I don’t know if people really want to play that type of violent multiplayer game. Sure CoD, Gears and other popular multiplayer games has violence as well but its not offputting in the same way.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
I like this, Sony needs a big multiplayer game and if Naughty Dog can deliver a multiplayer experience on the same level of quality as The Last of Us 1&2 it can become pretty damn big (but not very kids friendly).

The only thing that worries me about Factions 2 is that TLOU2 was brutal, like really offputting violence, and I don’t know if people really want to play that type of violent multiplayer game. Sure CoD, Gears and other popular multiplayer games has violence as well but its not offputting in the same way.
Could be an inhibition threshold that maybe would slow down the initial adoption phase after release.
But if the game is good and talked about than this will fade quickly.
Surely they will provide options to tone down the violence.
 

Aion002

Member
If it is TLU:

Cinematic pve? That's fine.

But please, make the pvp an improved version of the first one, with no p2w shit.

You Got This Come On GIF by reactionseditor
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Naughty Dog games are built on single player not multiplayer but I would value the hell out of a naughty dog MP like UC2,3 and 4.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
How long have they been developing this. I thought it was significantly far a long in progress mid last year. Seems crazy to have naughty dog making a multilayer stand alone.
 

skit_data

Member
How long have they been developing this. I thought it was significantly far a long in progress mid last year. Seems crazy to have naughty dog making a multilayer stand alone.
I thought the other day ”Can Naughty Dog really make a good multiplayer, non-narrative driven stand alone game?”

Then I realized that they made Crash Team Racing, a game that still holds up great today and the very faithful remake probably sold tons of copies more of what is esentially a Naughty Dog game. It’s not the same genre but I think some underestimate their ability to make a fun multiplayer game.
 

yurinka

Member
I think it will be mostly a normal multiplayer game, a normal evolution of TLOU Factions but evolved in scope to the scale of a full game and mixed with features and game modes from modern MP games.

I'd love it to have unlockable cutscene story (featuring the first one the torture and murder of Abby) portions that could also unlock some characters, weapons, customization items or stages every season or when each faction wins X amount of matches, or when you as player win X amount of matches, and obviously story events added each season/few months.

Hope this isn't cross-gen.
I bet it will be crossgen because this game was going to originally be the TLOU2 MP mode but evolved into a separate standalone game because its scale became too big. And well, because there's still many dozens of millions of players on PS4 and MP games need a ton of players to get balanced matches in ranked.

I bet they will release TLOU2 Director's Cut that will bundle the TLOU2 PS5 version, this standalone game and the TLOU1 PS5 remake.


Why can't a multiplayer game just be a multiplayer game?
A multiplayer game is a multiplayer game. Its single player part will be TLOU2. Regarding 'cinematic experience' maybe they only mean big explosions, some destructible environments or similar set pieces and stuff like that.
 
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I play Naughty Dog games as a way to avoid contact with other human beings.

I want developers to quit trying to make their games appeal to everyone and just focus on what they do best and their target audience.

At least we are getting past the point where EVERY developer felt they had to make their game have co-op or PVP. Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 5, BioShock 2, Mass Effect 3. None of those needed online modes.
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
I like this, Sony needs a big multiplayer game and if Naughty Dog can deliver a multiplayer experience on the same level of quality as The Last of Us 1&2 it can become pretty damn big (but not very kids friendly).

The only thing that worries me about Factions 2 is that TLOU2 was brutal, like really offputting violence, and I don’t know if people really want to play that type of violent multiplayer game. Sure CoD, Gears and other popular multiplayer games has violence as well but its not offputting in the same way.
I see what you're saying but that'll be defined by the balance they want to strike between maintaining the tone of the series vs chasing mass appeal. "cinematic" is a dirty word now, but I hope they stick to the former and just do something completely different rather than trying to make it "kids friendly" to go after the Fortnite crowd. I can't imagine it being any less violent than TLOU2 but with many ways to tone it down and customize via accessibility options.

What I'm worried about is what Hermen spoke about it in one or earlier interviews this year - they want to marry narrative and storytelling with multilayer in their upcoming games and that in my opinion just doesn't work in co-op.

I love pure gameplay PvE modes, a good horde mode with players vs infected with TLOU2 gameplay all I want from this game after GoT:Legends.

Hope this isn't cross-gen.

I'd love to see that, not a chance.

Still hiring? This shit is years away.

they had similar job ads for TLOU2 by the end of 2019. My bet is on reveal this year and late 2022 or early 2023 release, depending on what their plans are for PS5 TLOU2-HD that could be part of this package.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Naughty Dog is still "aggressively hiring" dev team members for its yet unannounced MP title everyone suspects will be the successor of TLOU Factions.

After confirming the title is indeed a standalone multiplayer game last June, in a series of tweets shared by team members on the project, the game is referred to in a way that will surely get some people triggered:
a "cinematic experience between players".




Vinit Agarwal was the lead on TLOU Factions, Uncharted 4 multiplayer, as well as previous ND MP modes and is rumored to be the Game Director on the project.

What that actually means we can only speculate before the game is officially revealed, hopefully during the TLOU Day (ex Outbreak Day) 26.09.

Safe to say tho such an expression seems to indicate a direction in line with the studio's previous project strengths, and a way to translate TLOU2's grounded gameplay into a multiplayer context, rather than chasing after multiplayer gaming trends set by PUBG or Fortnite.

Could the game contain single-player components covering Faction backstores?

The "monetization/economy" designer team for the project is also expanding.


They're probably just gonna try to keep a lot of the cinematic presentation that the singleplayer has. Ghost of Tsushima Legends is similar. Its multiplayer but it still has a cinematic presentation overall.

And it'll probably have some PvE modes alongside the usual PvP modes.

Herman Hulst was saying "who says multiplayer games can't have great stories?"
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
Ghost of Tsushima Legends is similar.
btw Legends is also bonkers, fantasy take on single player GoT, with magic, demons etc, which happens to be kinda similar to what Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4 multiplayer. Made by the same lead team working now on this project.
 
I play Naughty Dog games as a way to avoid contact with other human beings.

I want developers to quit trying to make their games appeal to everyone and just focus on what they do best and their target audience.

At least we are getting past the point where EVERY developer felt they had to make their game have co-op or PVP. Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 5, BioShock 2, Mass Effect 3. None of those needed online modes.
Bruh, they literally delayed the MP component to focus on the SP for TLOU2.

If anyone knows the importance of focusing on SP instead of MP, it's Naughty Dog.

Think they learned that the hard way with Uncharted 3 since that game was a bit of a clusterduck.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
Cinematic moments between players.

Folks, this is a Rust / Day Z / BR inspired game. Multiplayer games are now great story generators and Naughty Dog is leaning in.
that's the part I find generally confusing. I haven't played any of the games you mentioned (ok, Day Z for 30 minutes, it was horrible), but any "serious" videogame storytelling instantly falls apart when combined with voicechat banter and people acting goofy on screen. I think it's more about those emergent epic gameplay moments worth clipping, rather than some kind of an innovative, narrative quality made to be experienced with others.
 
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