Naughty Dog has given out the unfortunate news today that there won’t be a Last Of Us 2 demo coming out on the Playstation Network, and only the press will get access to one. Naughty Dog explained it as allowing its devs to have some downtime because of their current workload.
The coronavirus quarantine has affected a large number of game development studios, who have been forced to turn their homes into their workspaces in order to try and keep deadlines. Even then, even if a game gets completed on time, the quarantine also prevents a timely release due to so many store and business closures.
While a demo is something entirely different from a full game and doesn’t require its own disk, it’s still a whole new project of its own. This is the main reason why a Last Of Us 2 demo isn’t going to be released. Even though The Last Of Us 2 as a whole is almost done, a public demo is a brand new project.
A press demo, in contrast, is less a demo and more a chunk of the game cut out and given to press to play as a sneak peek. Along with that, Naughty Dog also wants to give its developers a break to not only rest from their work but also take care of obligations that pop up at home, since they’re working from there now.
Anticipation for The Last Of Us 2 is huge, but now that the game has been delayed indefinitely due to the coronavirus there’s no telling how long its fans will be waiting. And without even a playable demo to whet their appetite, hopefully the hype will stay there long enough for Naughty Dog to release the game.
So, even though there’s no Last Of Us 2 demo coming out to the public on PSN, hopefully any news given from press demos will still be able to keep us excited for when the game actually comes out.
