One of the greatest tragedies in Sony's live-service culls was the cancellation of The Last of Us Factions, the standalone sequel to the surprisingly great multiplayer mode from the original PS3 game. While Sony is still sending live-service games over the top despite the 180 in philosophy, this beloved multiplayer component is officially dead in the dirt. Well, as far as Naughty Dog and Sony are concerned.

Modder Speclizer thinks otherwise, as they've been working on a multiplayer mode for The Last of Us Part 2 on PC since the start of the year, which is planned to launch in September 2026. Just yesterday, the modder revealed that his project has "hit quite a big milestone." The mod can now handle proper 4v4 matches, where it was previously limited to 1v1s.

Speclizer regularly shows off what they've been working on via X. For example, it now also has a functioning leaderboard, and recently added the Seraphite Forest map to complement the Houses map previously shown off.

A major focus now is "exploring the methods of animation sync" to replicate the incredibly smooth, dynamic animations used in Naughty Dog's projects. As far as I understand it, in The Last of Us Part 2, only the player character has access to the full suite of animations—NPCs have different movements, which the modder realised when initially jerryrigging multiplayer functionality.

The mod creator also runs a YouTube series showing the fascinating behind-the-scenes in adding a fully-fledged multiplayer mode to a famously cinematic singleplayer game.

It's a very impressive mod, truth be told. You'd think a mod like this would be crude, but it's currently got a proper main menu with map selection and gear loadouts, a matchmaking system, and, of course, it's actually playable and looks exactly like what you'd expect from a multiplayer mode using the sequel's bones. I'd say it looks on track for September, and I'll be counting down the days.

Is it the standalone Last of Us Factions that Naughty Dog was working on? No, probably not, but Sony killed it and this is the next best thing.

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Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.