HBO has officially renewed The Last of Us for yet another season ahead of the show’s highly-anticipated season 2 premiere.
Multiple outlets confirmed the news on Wednesday, April 9, along with a statement from the show’s cocreator Craig Mazin.
“We approached season 2 with the goal of creating something we could be proud of,” Mazin, who also acts as a writer and executive producer on the show, said. “The end results have exceeded even our most ambitious goals, thanks to our continued collaboration with HBO and the impeccable work of our unparalleled cast and crew.”
He concluded: “We look forward to continuing the story of The Last of Us with Season 3!”
The renewal news comes just weeks after Mazin teased a continuation of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) story, despite there being only two parts to The Last of Us video game franchise. (The initial game was released in 2013, with Part II dropping in 2020.)
“[Cocreator] Neil [Druckmann] and I really are focused on telling the story that’s there, and it will come to an end, whether it is in season 3 or season 4,” Mazin told People late last month of the show’s future.
The Last of Us, Five Nights at Freddy’s and Super Mario Bros. are just some of the hit video games that have been adapted into TV shows and movies over the years. HBO adapted The Last of Us from the video game of the same name in January 2023 with Pedro Pascal playing Joel and […]
Mazin did, however, make it clear that he and Druckmann, 46, will not be creating a story that exists outside of the video game franchise.
“I’m not sure how I can top this,” Mazin added. “So, if there’s more or less of this to happen, other people will carry it forward. And I’ll go make tiny, tiny little things. Two people talking in a room, in a warm room.”
The Last of Us skyrocketed Pascal, 50, and Ramsey, 21, to fame following the first season’s premiere in January 2023. The second season will take place following the events of the season 1 finale in which Joel betrayed Ellie — she just doesn’t know it yet.
“I actually cried reading one of the scripts this season. I’ve never cried reading a piece of writing before, but I did,” Ramsey shared during their Monday, April 7, appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I’m excited, though, for those scenes. Those are the ones that, like, I’m thrilled about.”
They added, “Whenever there’s something dark and intense, I’m into it.”
The Last of Us season 2 will have only seven episodes — two less than the first season.
Mazin previously explained that each episode would be “quite big” in length, making up missing installments.
“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,” he told Deadline in June 2024. “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.”
The Last of Us season 2 premieres on HBO Sunday, April 13, at 9 p.m. ET.
