Former Head of PlayStation Shuhei Yoshida is dropping some absolute bombs about his tenure at Sony in a new interview (via Sacred Symbols), including one that answers a question about a recent live service cancellation.

One of the most significant PlayStation stories of the last couple years was the announcement that Naughty Dog had cancelled the long-awaited The Last of Us Online, a bolstered version of the original’s well-received Factions multiplayer, as TLOU Part 2 had launched without it.

There was reporting at the time that Bungie had been brought in to use their live service expertise, and the game was cancelled not all that long after that. There’s this refrain that “Bungie cancelled The Last of Us Online,” but that isn’t exactly true. From what Yoshida says, it was more like Bungie talked to Naughty Dog, who then realized they should cancel the game themselves, along with consultation with Sony.

Yoshida, despite saying that when he played The Last of Us Online it was “great,” says that “Bungie explained what it takes to make live service games, and Naughty Dog realised, ‘Oops, we can’t do that! If we do it, we can’t make Intergalactic.’ So that was a lack of foresight.” A very expensive “oops!" that cost years of development resources and tens of millions of dollars, no doubt.

Intergalactic is the brand new sci-fi IP from the studio that released a recent trailer at The Game Awards showing off its concept and its star, Tati Gabrielle. It was the subject of some controversy for various reasons (a lot of brand logos, typical “DEI” accusations), but looks to be a key addition to PlayStation’s line-up given that Naughty Dog does not miss when it comes to its single player games.

But no doubt what Bungie made them realize is just how significant of an investment it is to run a live service consistently. It’s one thing to build the game, but another to manage it, balance it, monetize it, update it and grow it over time, which is of course Sony’s goal with such a project. Even if it’s not on the scale of Destiny, it is still A) a ton of work and B) a huge risk to launch a multiplayer game in the current market, as Sony, of all places, has certainly realized (this cancellation took place before Concord, however).

By last count, Naughty Dog had around 400 employees, excluding additional help like contractors. It may seem obvious that making a giant single-player game like Intergalactic mixed with ongoing, potentially endless management of a live service game would be a huge strain on the studio and hurt both projects.

So no, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Bungie cancelled The Last of Us Online, but they do seem to have made Naughty Dog realize exactly what they were signing up for when previously they didn’t seem to fully understand.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.