This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season two and The Last of Us Part 2.
HBO didn’t really need to confirm that there was going to be aThe Last of Usseason three. Season two ends whereThe Last of Us Part 2cuts to black and then forces you to play through its last few days as Abby. However, despite prior comments suggesting otherwise, Craig Mazin might only have one more season of the show to finish telling Part 2’s story.
HBO CEO Casey Bloysspoke with Varietyabout all of the company’s biggest hits right now, so naturally, The Last of Us and its future were discussed. Bloys noted that the hope is that The Last of Us season three will be ready to go by 2027. Two years is a long wait between seasons, but it’s what we expected following the two-year gap between seasons one and two.
We’re definitely getting at least one more season of The Last of Us
But don’t get your hopes up about a season four
However, despite Mazin previously saying that he, and Neil Druckmann at the time,would need at least two more seasons to finish adapting Part 2, Bloys seems to believe that decision hasn’t been made. “Craig is still working it out whether it will be two more seasons or one more long season. It hasn’t been decided yet,” Bloys told Variety.
So it’s up to Mazin, who will pen season three alone asDruckmann has stepped back from the showto focus on video game commitments atNaughty Dog, most notably the studio’s next big triple-A title,Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Midway through season two, Mazin went as far as to say there’s “no way” the rest of Part 2’s story can be told in a single season, noting that HBO hadn’t greenlit The Last Of Us for a season four at that stage, but hoped that it would.
It seems things have changed since Mazin made those comments, as the HBO CEO has confirmed that a fourth season of The Last of Us is there if Mazin wants it, but he’s not sure if he does. Mazin’s outlook on how to approach the rest of the story might have been altered by reactions to season two. While still celebrated, fans weren’t nearly as pleased with the finished product as they were with season one.
The season two finale, in particular, left many viewers with a bad taste in their mouths. Not only do some thinkcutting it where they did was the wrong call, but others are still scratching their heads aboutthe seemingly pointless detour Ellie wound up on, which resulted in a very brief meeting with some Scars. Above all else, with it taking two years between seasons, there’s a huge risk of a lot of people tuning out never to return if a story that took one game to tell still doesn’t have an ending in the adaptation four years from now.
