The Last of Us Almost Got a Tencent Makeover — Proof Sony Will Monetize Its Biggest Franchises at Any Cost

Sony and Tencent haven’t exactly been besties lately, but apparently there was a moment when they were ready to play nice — and it involved The Last of Us. Yes, that The Last of Us. And the paper trail for it just popped up in a filing.

The meeting that almost was

Olivier Courtemanche, who runs mobile at PlayStation Studios, says a talk with Tencent’s Aurora Studios was originally set up around a potential Last of Us collaboration. This comes from a declaration spotted by The Game Post, and it straight-up spells out what they thought the meeting was about.

'With respect to Aurora Studios, we went into the meeting under the impression that they wanted to do a potential collaboration for The Last of Us.'

That’s a very specific, behind-the-scenes kind of detail — and a fascinating one, considering how sensitive Sony has been about this franchise. The obvious guess is that it tied into the multiplayer project that was in development for a while. If you’re connecting dots: think the long-gestating Last of Us Online concept. For context, Naughty Dog later canceled that multiplayer title, which makes this Tencent angle even more interesting in hindsight.

And here’s the bigger gripe

The filing nugget aside, the broader conversation here is what Sony has been doing this generation. Since the PS5 launched in late 2020, the first-party slate has leaned heavily on remakes and re-releases. That’s the argument, anyway: fewer brand-new, must-play exclusives from Sony, more dusted-off hits. The piece’s take is that the pipeline through 2026 looks thin too.

What the piece says is on the first-party horizon

• Marvel’s Wolverine
• Saros
• Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

Not exactly a wall-to-wall calendar, if that’s the full picture. Sure, third-party games are still strong — they always are — but if the best reason to own a PlayStation has traditionally been its exclusives, that argument gets shakier when there aren’t many new ones and the ones you do get hit PC a couple years later.

Fans are feeling it

The sentiment you see over and over: the PS3 and PS4 eras were stacked with fresh heavy-hitters — God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us — while the current cycle feels like it’s recycling the same hall-of-fame lineup. Meanwhile, Xbox is over there pitching Game Pass as the value play. If you’re a PlayStation diehard who bought the box for new first-party experiences, that’s a frustrating vibe.

The takeaway

Buried in a legal filing, we get a peek at Sony being open to teaming with Tencent on The Last of Us. That alone says a lot about how far they were willing to go with that franchise. But the louder story is the one fans keep hammering: fewer fresh exclusives, more rehashes. If your ace card is nostalgia, you can only play it so many times before people start asking for a new deck. Are you still into replaying the old hits with a new coat of paint, or are you ready for Sony to finally deal something new?