In what will likely come as disappointing - if not entirely unsurprising - news following some recent developments, it sounds like the planned third season of HBO's The Last of Us might well end up being the last.
Season 2 did cover about half of the second Naughty Dog video game, but showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have always been adamant that two more seasons would be required to adapt the rest of the story in a satisfying manner.
Of course, this was before Druckmann decided to step away from the series.
“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO,” Druckmann said in a statement at the time. “With work completed on Season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on Season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative.”
“Co-creating the show has been a career highlight. It’s been an honor to work alongside Craig Mazin to executive produce, direct and write on the last two seasons,” he added.
Whether Druckmann's departure was a direct factor in the show's run being cut short is not clear, but HBO boss Casey Bloys said the following when asked if season 3 would be the last during an interview with Deadline.
"It certainly seems that way, but on decisions like that, we will defer to the showrunners. So you can ask them."
In the closing moments of the season 2 finale, Abby catches up with Ellie and her crew in the theater they've been holed up in. Jesse is killed almost immediately (mirroring his shocking death in the game), and Abby holds her gun on Tommy while demanding that Ellie tosses her weapon and face her.
Ellie admits that she was the one that killed Abby's friends, pleading for Tommy's life. Furious that Ellie "wasted" the mercy she was shown when Joel was murdered, Abby turns her gun on the teen, and we hear a shot ring out as the screen cuts to black. We then flash back to "Seattle, Day One," with Abby waking up in her WLF barracks. Just like the game, most of season 3 will play out from Abby's perspective.
Season 3 will follow the game's narrative, but that doesn't mean there won't be any surprises for those who already know the story.
“We’re telling you that next season, one, there’s an epic nature to everything that’s about to happen,” Druckmann said during a 2025 interview. “But this other story is going to be really important coming backing to Joel and Ellie and everything we’ve seen so far.”
Added Mazin: “All I can say is we haven’t seen the last of Kaitlyn Dever, and we haven’t seen the last of Bella Ramsey, and we haven’t seen the last of Isabela Merced, and we haven’t even seen the last of a lot of people who are currently dead in the story.”
With a few tweaks, the rest of the story could quite easily be told in one more season, so we can't imagine many fans being too up in arms about this.