The Last Of Us is the rarest of things – a live action video game adaptation that doesn’t suck.
Released in 2023 to critical acclaim, HBO’s The Last Of Us takes place 20 years after modern civilisation has been destroyed. Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they travel across America and depend on each other for survival.
READ MORE: ‘The Last Of Us’ review: an apocalyptically good video game port
Based on the celebrated PlayStation game of the same name, original series creator Neil Druckmann co-wrote the HBO series and served as executive producer which goes some way to explain The Last Of Us’ monumental success.
The first episode of The Last Of Us became HBO’s second biggest premiere in over a decade after House Of The Dragon, racking up 4.7 million viewers in the US across HBO and streaming service HBO Max.
Viewership of the second episode jumped up to 5.7 million viewers, a 22 per cent increase. But will the show get a second season?
Has The Last Of Us season two been confirmed?
Oh yes!
A second season of The Last Of Us was announced before the third episode aired.
“I’m humbled, honoured, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey,” said co-creator Neil Druckmann. “Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two! On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog & PlayStation, thank you!”
The journey continues. #TheLastOfUs will return for another season on @HBOMax. pic.twitter.com/FQNG6vhk1d
— The Last of Us (@TheLastofUsHBO) January 27, 2023
“I’m so grateful to Neil Druckmann and HBO for our partnership, and I’m even more grateful to the millions of people who have joined us on this journey,” added Craig Mazin, co-creator on the show. “The audience has given us the chance to continue, and as a fan of the characters and world Neil and Naughty Dog created, I couldn’t be more ready to dive back in.”
Does The Last Of Us season two have a release date?
Not long to wait
In July 2024, Druckmann implied filming had wrapped in Vancouver via an Instagram post, with the show entering post-production shortly afterwards.
A few months later, HBO shared a first-look at both Joel and Ellie in season two, alongside the news that the show was aiming for a 2025 release date. They doubled down on that with a teaser trailer, released in September.
Pedro Pascal and @BellaRamsey in #TheLastOfUs Season 2, now in production.
Coming to @HBO and @StreamOnMax in 2025. pic.twitter.com/g8khQYhzoX
— Max (@StreamOnMax) May 15, 2024
To kickstart 2025, HBO then confirmed The Last Of Us season two would be released in April, which is sooner than many fans were expecting. A ominous new trailer was also shared, that hints at a whole lot of heartbreak. It’s since been announced that the first episode of season two will air April 13.
Where could The Last Of Us go in season two?
Less unconditional love, more revenge
The Last Of Us stuck pretty faithfully to the source material, with the nine episodes that made up season one covering the entirety of the first game. Luckily, there’s another game to pull from.
Released in 2020, The Last Of Us Part 2 picks up five years after the events of the original and sees Ellie off on another adventure alongside newcomer Abby, “a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult.”
In a 2020 interview with Eurogamer, Druckmann said the first game was about “how far someone is willing to go for someone they love unconditionally” while the sequel is about “how far are you willing to go for love, but when someone has wronged someone you really care about. How far are you willing to go to do right by them, to bring the people responsible to justice and what effect that would have could have on you.” So, viewers should probably brace themselves.
Pascal has also warned fans the second season of The Last Of Us is “fucking heartbreaking” and called the show’s producers “sick” people.
Who will return in The Last Of Us season two?
Familiar faces but a lot of newcomers
Both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey have confirmed they’ll be making a return as Joel and Ellie in The Last Of Us, with Ramsey excited to explore “the complexity of her relationship with Joel” [via the Happy Sad Confused podcast].
A bunch of new faces have also been confirmed to be joining the cast, including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby Anderson, a member of the Fireflies out for revenge. Abby is a playable character in The Last Of Us Part 2, so expect to see a lot of Dever in the second season.
“We would’ve struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role,” Druckmann told Entertainment Weeklyrecently. “In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently. We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she’s almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things.”
He went on to say “that doesn’t play as big of a role in this version of the story because there’s not as much violent action moment to moment. It’s more about the drama. I’m not saying there’s no action here. It’s just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”
Also joining the cast are Beef star Young Mazino as Jesse, Isabela Merced as Dina and Danny Ramirez as Manny. Ariela Barer, Tati Gabrielle, Spencer Lord, Jeffrey Wright and Catherine O’Hara will also feature.
Will the second season be the end of The Last Of Us?
Probably not
In the lead up to season two, HBO’s drama chief Francesca Orci has spoken about the show’s future. “We don’t have a complete or final plan, but I think it’s looking like four seasons. I wouldn’t want to confirm that, but it’s looking like this season and then two more seasons after this and we’re done.”
And it turns out co-creator Craig Mazin was already thinking about the future of The Last Of Us before the first season even aired.
Talking to Variety, he said: “There’s an enormous amount of story that Neil created that we would want to dive into. The second game is much bigger than the first one. So we were just starting now to talk about how to kind of break it into a season – seasons. How do we adapt? What do we keep? What do we change? How do we transform? What do we add? All those things we’re just starting to talk about now.”
But he’s promised The Last Of Us won’t go on indefinitely. In an interview with Collider, he explained: “I don’t have much narrative interest in writing a show that is designed to perpetually continue until the network finally puts it out of its misery somewhere. I write to endings. Endings are everything to me.”
“And also, if the show doesn’t have an ending, it means nothing ultimately is truly purposeful. All the stakes become empty because, if the network renews you, everything’s fine, and I don’t know how to do that,” he added.
He went on to say that the story left to adapt from The Last Of Us Part 2 is “a lot” and will “probably take more than [one] season to tell [but] our ambition is to tell the story that exists, as best as we can, in a different medium.”
Druckmann added: “Yeah, I remember, early on, I asked Craig and HBO, ‘How many episodes does this season need to be’ And the answer was, ‘As many as the story requires, and no more.’ And likewise, that would be our approach for future seasons to say, ‘Okay, this will be as many seasons as required to reach that ending, and no more’.”
Is there a The Last Of Us Part Three video game to pull from?
A “final chapter” might be on the way
Last year co-creator Neil Druckmann made headlines when he hinted there may be “one more chapter” in The Last Of Us story. It comes after Naughty Dog previously said they may never make a sequel to The Last Of Us Part Two.
“I know there’s a bunch of people wondering about The Last Of Us Part 3 and whether that will be a thing or not. All I could say is, at Naughty Dog we’re very, very privileged that our publisher Sony has supported us every step of the way to follow our passions,” Druckmann told Buzzfeed.
He went on to explain that this meant that “just because something is successful, people think there’s all this pressure and we have to make a sequel. That’s not the case.”
“It’s up to us whether we want to continue it or not. If we can come up with a compelling story that has this universal message and statement about love – just like the first and second game did – then we will tell that story. If we can’t come up with something, we have a very strong ending with Part 2 and that will be the end.”
More recently though, Druckmann said there probably wouldn’t be a The Last Of Us Part Three. “I guess the only thing I would say is don’t bet on there being more.”