Tag: The Last Of Us

The best Black Friday PlayStation deals on Amazon so far

We’ve rounded up the best Black Friday PlayStation deals on Amazon so far, including Final Fantasy, The Last of Us, God of War, and more

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Shopping season is here again, and Amazon is kicking things off early with some hot Black Friday PlayStation deals, including a console bundle complete with Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. You can grab Square Enix’s dark epic Final Fantasy 16 at a discount, dive into Cal Kestis’ latest Star Wars adventure, take a trip to medieval Baghdad in Assassin’s Creed, or get behind the wheel and go stupidly fast in Hawaii in Ubisoft’s most recent The Crew racing game.

There’s plenty to sink your teeth into, and we’ll be updating this roundup as more deals go live.

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The best Black Friday video game deals on Walmart

Walmart’s Black Friday video game deals are here, with discounts spread across games for PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch

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Walmart’s Black Friday video game deals are here, with discounts spread across PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. There’s a bit of something for everyone, whether you’re after some of the latest hits like Tears of the Kingdom and Assassin’s Creed or evergreen classics, from Far Cry to Lego Star Wars. Most of these deals are for physical games, unless we indicate otherwise, so if you have a digital PS5 or Xbox Series S, bear in mind that they won’t work for your system.

If you’re after more Black Friday deals, check out our roundups for GameStop, PS5 on Amazon, and Nintendo on Amazon.

The Last of Us multiplayer game is reportedly ‘on ice’

The Last of Us maker Naughty Dog is reportedly laying off at least 25 employees, as The Last of Us multiplayer game faces difficulties

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The Last of Us and Uncharted maker Naughty Dog is reportedly laying off at least 25 employees, as The Last of Us multiplayer game faces ongoing difficulties. The news comes from two unnamed sources familiar with the situation, who told Kotaku the layoffs affect quality assurance workers the most, though they also include employees in the art and production departments.

Kotaku’s sources say that all the affected employees are contract workers. They will receive no severance pay and are expected to work until the end of October, and Naughty Dog reportedly forbade them and full-time employees from publicly discussing the layoffs. Whether Sony plans to make an official announcement remains to be seen.

The layoffs may stem from ongoing problems with The Last of Us multiplayer spinoff. Naughty Dog publicly delayed the game in summer 2023, and Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said that Sony quietly moved resources away from the project. That decision reportedly came after a negative internal assessment from Destiny 2 maker Bungie, which Sony acquired in 2022 to help lead its live-service game initiative. Now, Kotaku’s sources say that game is “basically on ice,” and Naughty Dog has made no further announcements about development progress since the project’s earlier delay.

Naughty Dog’s layoffs are just the latest in a stream of redundancies across the games industry. Fortnite maker Epic Games laid off nearly 1,000 employees after shifting toward a creator-focused structure, Blizzard cut jobs on the Hearthstone team, and Ubisoft quietly laid off a small number of workers as well. Indie publisher Team17 also fired most of its quality assurance department, and the company CEO announced their departure.

Meanwhile, data from research group Circana shows that the video game industry generated over $4 billion in revenue in August 2023 alone.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

The best PlayStation summer sale deals for PS4 and PS5 games

The Steam Summer Sale may be over, but Sony’s PlayStation Summer Sale is just getting underway with discounts on the best PS4 and PS5 games

The Steam Summer Sale may be over, but Sony’s PlayStation Summer Sale is just getting underway. The annual sale cuts prices on some of the best PS4 games and PS5 games, from Sony’s first-party favorites, including The Last of Us Part 1 and Horizon Forbidden West, to third-party stalwarts including Red Dead Redemption 2, and even a selection of new games that haven’t gone on sale much so far in 2023. If you’re itching for something new in the lead-up to Spider-Man 2, now’s a good time to get it.

The PlayStation Summer Sale runs through Aug. 16, 2023, and if you’re a PS Plus subscriber, you can get a few extra discounts as well.

 

The best Amazon Prime Day 2023 PlayStation game sales

Prime Day PlayStation sales are here, and there’s a pretty impressive selection across most of Sony’s first-party games

Prime Day PlayStation sales are here, and there’s a pretty impressive selection across most of Sony’s first-party games, with some nice third-party offerings, and even a hardware bundle. If you’ve held off diving into some of the PS5’s best games, now’s probably a good time to do it. You can get The Last of Us, Gran Turismo, Horizon: Forbidden West, and more for a fraction of their usual price while Prime Day sales – and supply – last, which is until the end of the day on July 12, 2023.

We’ve rounded up some of the best Prime Day PlayStation game deals below.

 

The Last of Us is coming to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights

Naughty Dog and Universal announced that The Last of Us is coming to Halloween Horror Nights in 2023, complete with Joel and Ellie

Naughty Dog and Universal announced that The Last of Us is coming to Halloween Horror Nights in 2023, complete with Joel, Ellie, and plenty of Infected. Universal is creating an immersive haunted house-style experience set in Naughty Dog’s survival horror world, and it’ll open on Sep. 1, 2023, at Universal Orlando.

The Universal Hollywood campus is getting its own version on Sep. 7, 2023. Single-night tickets cost $79.99 apiece.

“As a massive fan — and frequent attendee — of Halloween Horror Nights, we are honored to have The Last of Us included in this year’s lineup,” Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann said in a statement. “It has been an incredible thrill for us at Naughty Dog to collaborate with Universal, bringing the world of the game to life, focusing on even the tiniest details that our fans know so well.”

The Halloween Horror Nights experience adapts the Pittsburgh segment of The Last of Us and takes visitors through a series of claustrophobic tunnels crawling with clickers, runners, and stalkers, and into familiar locations from the game, including the Grand Hotel.

The press statement calls it an immersive experience. It didn’t mention what you’ll actually be doing, though hitting looters with baseball bats and getting eaten by zombies like in the game probably isn’t on the agenda. Whatever it is, you’ll be doing it alongside Joel and Ellie, though in what capacity, again, Naughty Dog didn’t say.

If you’re hoping for more The Last of Us soon, you’ll be a little disappointed. Naughty Dog delayed the upcoming Last of Us multiplayer game indefinitely. 

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Naughty Dog is delaying The Last of Us multiplayer game

Naughty Dog previously promised more information about The Last of Us multiplayer game, and it turns out that information is a delay

Update: May 26, 2023

Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier said on Twitter that Naughty Dog’s decision to announce the delay comes after Bloomberg learned that the game’s development has hit a snag.

“Sony Group Corp. has slowed down development on an upcoming multiplayer game in its long-running The Last of Us video game series as the creators reassess its quality and long-term viability, according to four people familiar with the project,” Schreier said.

While the game has not been canceled, Schreier said only a small number of developers remains on the project while the company decides where it should go next.

Original Story:

Naughty Dog previously promised more information about The Last of Us multiplayer game in summer 2023, but that announcement is rather different than some fans hoped for. The Last of Us multiplayer game is delayed indefinitely so the team can have more time to bring their vision to life.

“We know many of you have been looking forward to hearing more about our The Last of Us multiplayer game,” Naughty Dog said in a statement on Twitter. “We’re incredibly proud of the job our studio has done thus far, but as development has continued, we’ve realized what is best for our game is to give it more time.”

Naughty Dog didn’t mention how significant the delay is, though the game never had even a vague release frame to begin with. Naughty Dog previously came under fire for reported crunch conditions at the studio and pressure placed on developers to deliver complex projects on short deadlines, including work on The Last of Us Part 2.

The studio said they would continue working on the project, along with “other games” in development, including a “new single-player experience.” Whether that’s The Last of Us Part 3 is anyone’s guess. Naughty Dog has teased it already, though, and the HBO show performed so well that it would be more surprising not to see a new game.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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10 DLCs that are better than the base game

Sometimes DLC is good! Here are 9 pieces of DLC that manage to usurp the base game.

DLC used to be a dirty word. Remember when some of it was only accessible if you bought the game brand new and redeemed the online pass? Remember Oblivion’s pricy horse armor? The bad old days. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then. 

These days we have some incredible pieces of DLC, including entire expansions that enrich and add to the base game. Some of them even end up usurping the main event, twisting up the formula in an unexpected way, creating something truly memorable. 

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So let’s take a look back at the 9 pieces of DLC that were better than the base game. 

‘I don’t fear killing characters’ – The Last of Us showrunner on Season 2

Craig Mazin knows all about The Last of Us Part 2’s big moment.

Craig Mazin, a showrunner best known for HBO’s The Last of Us, seemingly has no problem killing off characters.

Massive spoiler warning: if you’re unfamiliar with The Last of Us Part 2’s story, then we wary reading on – Season 2 of the television series will essentially be an adaptation of that game, meaning earth-shattering spoilers are ahead. So maybe don’t keep reading if you’re sensitive to knowing massive plot beats. Seriously – this is your last chance to dip out.

Alright, let’s get into it. If you’ve played The Last of Us Part 2, you already know Joel dies relatively early in the story. During an interview with Esquire, Mazin hinted that the infamous moment will likely make it into Season 2.

“This should be fairly obvious to anyone by now, but I don’t fear killing characters,” Mazin said. “But the important thing to note is that neither Neil [Druckmann, co-creator and fellow executive producer of the series] nor I feel constrained by the source material.”

So, if you were hoping for a different outcome, it sure sounds like that will not be the case – keep all golf clubs away from Pedro Pascal, please (sorry, this joke was a swing-and-miss).

It’s a tough pill to swallow, and even Bella Ramsey, who played Ellie in HBO’s show, explained during the same interview that Joel’s potential demise will be a lot to sort through mentally.

“If that does take place in the show,” Ramsey explains. “I don’t know that I’m emotionally ready for it.”

Most fans aren’t either, in truth.

What we do know about Season 2 is it’ll have a lot more infected. That, and it probably will not premiere until late 2024 at the earliest.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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The Last of Us PC fixes are coming, but Steam Deck isn’t a priority

Naughty Dog is addressing the port’s overall stability first and foremost.

While developer Naughty Dog is currently waste-deep in fixing The Last of Us Part 1‘s buggy PC port – Steam Deck compatibility isn’t a priority for the studio.

On Tuesday, Naughty Dog announced that in addition to today’s bug-squashing hotfix that addresses crashes and mouse-movement camera issues, another patch for The Last of Us Part 1 for PC will arrive on Friday, April 7, 2023. However, if you’re a Steam Deck owner hoping for extra support – there’s going to be a wait.

“While we know many of you would like to play The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam Deck, we are prioritizing fixes and patches before submitting it for verification,” reads a statement on Twitter. “We will keep you updated of its Steam Deck status as we continue to improve the PC version.”

The PC port is a complete mess in general, so it’s understandable that Naughty Dog would prioritize updating The Last Of Us Part 1 for everyone rather than those just playing on Steam Deck. It’s certainly a let-down, though, especially since studio co-president Neil Druckmann was teasing Steam Deck compatibility several months ago.

If you own the platform and are curious about what titles work excellently on it, check out our in-depth list of the best Steam Deck-verified games.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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