The maker of the blockbuster video game The Last of Us, which was adapted into the hit HBO series by the same name earlier this year, announced that it would cancel development of its long-anticipated online multiplayer version of the game.

“We realize many of you have been anticipating news around the project that we’ve been calling The Last of Us Online,” the developer, Naughty Dog, said in the announcement Thursday. “There’s no easy way to say this: We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.”

The studio said the decision to drop the game had come after it became clear that it would have needed to commit resources “for years to come,” at the expense of future single-player games.

Naughty Dog said it was faced with two options: to “become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.” It chose the second option.