The Last of Us part 2 news: Naughty Dog confirms return of multiplayer feature; will Joel be back?

Promotional image from "The Last of Us" The Last of Us

Fans of the Factions feature in the original Last of Us installment will be pleased to know that it is making a return in part 2.

Naughty Dog confirmed that the multiplayer mode will be be built into The Last of Us: Part II which is making its way out to the PS4 sometime soon - or at least soon-ish.

That piece of news was confirmed to GameSpot by the game's co-director Anthony Newman who said: 'Factions is coming back.'

The game's other co-director Kurt Margenau added: 'Multiplayer is coming back. We're not going to talk details yet about what form that takes, but we can confirm there will be multiplayer.'

He was obviously anticipating the next question of fans!

Players of The Last of Us have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Part II. It's been six years since the first part was released back in 2012 and we know it's coming soon but neither Naughty Dog or Sony are ready to confirm the exact release date just yet.

In the sequel, players will play as Ellie but naturally the question on everyone's lips is whether we will see Joel, who was the playable character in part I.

The trailers offer clues that he is still alive - the most recent one shown at E3 2018 mentioned an 'old man' that we assume is talking about Joel - but beyond that we don't really know much about whether he will feature in the second installment and in what way.

Game co-director Neil Druckmann has previously teased that Ellie will be the only playable character in The Last of Us part 2 so we have to take him at his word for now.

The game is not expected to launch until 2019 earliest and it's possible that Naughty Dog and Sony will reveal the release date at the upcoming Paris Games Week or PSX in December. 

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