We've been waiting upwards of a year for new episodes of The Last of Us, and thanks to last year's Hollywood strikes, the series won't return until 2025.
Now, it's been confirmed it will be back with fewer episodes than season 1. In an interview with Deadline, co-creators, executive producers, showrunners and directors Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann confirmed season 2 will consist of seven episodes, albeit with longer runtimes.
The story, which adapts The Last of Us Part II video game, will then continue into a third and possibly fourth season!
"The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons," Mazin tells the trade. "When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes."
"We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time," he continued, "and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too."
"We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that - as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television - Season 3 will be significantly larger."
"And indeed, the story may require Season 4. One thing is absolutely for sure, I don’t see how we could tell the story that remains after Season 2 is complete in one more season," Mazin concluded.
These comments will likely only fuel concerns among fans of The Last of Us games that HBO will stretch this story out a little too much due to the first season's success. Telling the second game's ambitious story over seven episodes would be impossible but three seasons suggest a lot of new content will be added.
On the plus side, this may mean Pedro Pascal's Joel gets a bigger role in the story.
The Last of Us season 2's returning cast includes Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, and Rutina Wesley as Maria.
Previously announced new cast members include Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac. Catherine O’Hara also guest stars.
The show is written by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and is also executive-produced by Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O’Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Evan Wells.
The Last of Us season 2 will premiere on HBO in 2025.