The Last of Us has been hit with a shocking blow after what was a rocky and divisive second season. The Ankler is reporting that Neil Druckmann, the main creative force behind the game and one of the showrunners on the television adaptation, is stepping back from the third and fourth seasons of HBO’s hit series in order to focus on the newest game being developed at Naughty Dog. Druckmann soon after issued a statement announcing his decision to step back from the creative involvement of the series.
“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. 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. I’m deeply thankful for the thoughtful approach and dedication the talented cast and crew took to adapting The Last of Us Part I and the continued adaptation of The Last of Us Part II.”
What Can We Expect from ‘The Last of Us’ Season 3?
Well, nothing good that’s for sure. We ended on a cliffhanger in the Season 2 finale as Kaitlyn Dever‘s Abby hunted down Bella Ramsey‘s Ellie, shooting Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and killing Jesse (Young Mazino) before firing on Ellie herself. After a cut to black, we saw Abby three days earlier in Seattle, hinting that the third season will follow the events of those three days for the antagonist who will be turned into a protagonist by the end of the show, if the writing team hit the right notes. But can they be redeemed? Druckmann previously stated he wasn’t so sure.
“The question that we’re asking, and the thing we’re interrogating in this story is, when you’ve committed such horrible things, depending on your circumstance, can you ever come back from that? We see in that porch scene, Joel is trying to come back from what he’s done, even though he doesn’t regret it. Now, we have these two characters that are on this downward spiral, trying to do justice for the people that they love, and we’ll see how far that goes.”
The Last of Us is now streaming on Max.
