The Last of Us multiplayer won't hurt single-player, Naughty Dog insists

The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has defended its decision to include a multiplayer mode in the game, yesterday revealed in a list of pre-order bonuses.

The studio's community strategist Arne Meyer has hit back at fans who suggested that the mode's late announcement meant it was a "tacked on" addition.

"We don't approach MP in any of our games as tacked on," Meyer wrote (thanks, MP1st). "And we also always have separate teams working on the different components so that we can maintain full focus on making SP and MP up to our standards.

"And we have faith that our MP will stand on its own. If we felt like it would be tacked on, we wouldn't have added it. We want all our game experiences to be of the highest quality and that's what we work extremely hard to deliver."

Meyer also stressed that the time and money needed to develop the game's multiplayer had not been snaffled from its single-player team.

"MP has never taken away resources from the SP game in any of our games, always separate teams, separate resources. The folks working on the single player campaign always have the resources and support to complete that portion of the game to the vision they planned for.

"The SP portion of the game hasn't been skimped out on in any way."

The Last of Us is due for release next May. We've yet to see any footage of the multiplayer mode in action.