We know that work is underway on the long-awaited multiplayer release of The Last of Us: Part II: Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann admitted more or less on Twitter last week, asking for patience from fans. Although, while it’s not clear to what extent Factions tracking is about to be released, we do know that the developer continues to concretize its ranks with several multiplayer-focused hires.
One of those roles he is advertising right now, as GameSpot saw it, is the position of an economic designer. The message should give you a good idea of the type of tasks for which the candidate will be responsible: “We are looking for a passionate multiplayer economy designer who can help us create ways of personal expression for our players, to ensure a longevity games and give our players great rewards for fighting. “
The job description continues to require hiring to “design and tune the economy and game progression” and “collaborate extensively with [the live operations team] to optimize the economy and respond to the needs of the players ”. It’s all vanilla stuff, but we can make some inferences about what the future of The Last of Us multiplayer will be based on that.
Indeed, it seems that Naughty Dog wants to build a kind of experience very “sticky”, with regular updates, as we see with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War or Fortnite. Obviously, the franchise has its own distinctive style of play, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the developer double the post-release support here.
Naturally, the word “economy” will lead readers directly to microtransactions, and while we anticipate that this title will have all the pitfalls of a modern multiplayer game (a Battle Pass, for example, feels nailed), it’s worth noting which seems to refer a lot to the economies of the game here; this position is being announced because Naughty Dog wants to “give our players great rewards to fight for.”
Hopefully, we will be able to see what has been cooked in the not too distant future.