How do you know that ND is having a content problem? That seems like quite the assumption on your part. 

Yeah pretty much. Not exactly what the concern is here: Bungie was bought to help with live service titles for Sony. Seem like they're doing their job. 

While true overall, it’s all speculation as to what’s actually going on, but if the report is true that it’s a player retention issue, then it’s a content issue in 1 of 2 ways.

Either the content that’s there doesn’t have a satisfying gameplay/rewards loop (which would require to go back to the drawing board) or there just isn’t enough overall content to keep players interested. Ala Halo Infinite lol.

Both gameplay and rewards, such as cosmetics, are considered content in live-service games. And ND will need to nail both of these key aspects in order to be successful. And having played thousands of hours of Destiny over the years till 2021, I very much know what Bungie thinks are keys to successful live services because they’re vocal about that. 

EDIT: I typed this out on mobile and messed up the quote

There's been a lot of assumptions on what might have been the issue with Naughty Dog's game was.

I've seen the game must have been bad in some fashion, or Naughty Dog is too slow to make content for that kind of game.

Based on what the article said, the latter is probably a lot more accurate. 

The critical part of a live service title is that people are playing it on some kind of regular fashion. That might mean playing a few hours a month at least for years. By comparison, Naughty Dog has specialized in making fantastic 10-20 hour experiences. They do make good multiplayer, but it's not the core of what they do. But largely they make the anti-live service game. A live service game probably shouldn't even have Naughty Dog's level of polish, it doesn't seem particularly feasible to do so.

If you tried to make like a 12 hour co-op experience as a live service title, that just won't work. Unless Naughty Dog was able to push them out on like a monthly basis or something. 

Naughty Dog's game might have been absolutely fantastic, but if it doesn't drive people to play for months on end, then it doesn't fit their goals.  

On a side note, I'm very curious about Naughty Dog's other "projects". Thought it was pretty interesting that they had it as plural. 

- Uncharted

- The Last of Us 2 PC

- The Last of Us 3

- New IP

I'm kind of leaning towards TLOU3, and a new IP in the works. The former is heavily rumored, and the latter seems to be suggested at pretty hard.

Uncharted is pretty rumored as well, but it sounds like it is being farmed out basically. 

Maybe after my Final Fantasy playthroughs, I will finally try Diablo.

If you do, I highly recommend starting with the Diablo 2 remake! D3 is a lot of fun, but its arcadey, art direction is cartooney, story was all over the place, and it never did recapture the (dark) magic that made Diablo great in the first place. Still insanely fun, but probably wouldn’t be where I would start. 

I have not played 4 yet but given the history of 3 and how these games work. Wait a few years after many updates and expansions. 3 is a great jumping-in point now. Don't need to know anything about previous games.

Whatever happened to all those teases of a Sci-Fi/Space themed game, I want that to be the new IP.

That could happen.

Naughty Dog was teasing the Last of Us in Uncharted 3. 

Savage Starlight could have been a reference to some concepts that someone was working on. 

The other possibility, is this fantasy world that a concept artist at ND was working on.

Eh, had enough of medieval fantasy stuff, there's so many more of it than Sci-Fi/Space themed imo.