The Last of Us showrunner Neil Druckmann has shared his thoughts on the possibilities of a third game in the franchise saying that he would “jump at” the opportunity.
The hit video game has been adapted into a critically acclaimed and Emmy award-winning HBO series starring Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna and Catherine O’Hara.
The second season began last month and will reach its conclusion with the seventh episode this weekend. While based on the 2020 video game sequel The Last of Us Part II, it’s still not close to bringing the game’s full story to the screen.
Although a third season has been confirmed by HBO, a release date has yet to be confirmed. Details on which of the game’s narratives the season will follow have not been disclosed, although it is likely to focus on Kaitlyn Dever’s antagonist Abby.
Speaking to the Sacred Symbols podcast, Druckmann, who is also the head of creative at video game developer Naughty Dog, has now dropped a hint that a third game could be in the works, potentially giving the show more stories to play with in the future.
When asked about the possibility of a third game, the 46-year-old said: “While I’m the caretaker of this franchise, it’s important that everything is of high quality. I don’t want to just make a lot of it. I want to be very thoughtful about everything we make.
“When we did the show, we teamed up with, I feel, the best TV makers with HBO and we’re making the best version of that.
“If we were ever to come back to it, I want to make sure it’s a story worthy of The Last of Us. I love that world, I love these characters. With the right opportunity, with the right idea, yeah, I would totally jump at it.”
Druckmann’s words echo those of fellow showrunner Craig Mazin, who recently said that he hopes the dystopian series will run for at least two more seasons to allow for the completion of the show’s narrative.
Speaking to Collider, Mazin explained that “there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth.”
He also hinted that the third season would feature more episodes than the second.
Asked by the publication about why the writers chose to end season two where it does, Mazin responded: “We always think ahead. We thought ahead to Season 3 and Season 4, to try to get as much visibility as we can, so that we don’t end up in a situation where we’re sitting down and getting into details for a season and then going, ‘Oh, man, if only we hadn’t had that person say that one line or be in that spot or wear that jacket, this would be so much cooler.’
“So, we really do try to think things through fundamentally. The challenge for our first season was, how do we tell this big story in a way that’s complete and doable within an amount of time and with the budget we have? And with this season, it was, ‘OK, this source material goes way beyond one season.’”
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