HBO’s ‘The Last Of Us’ Won’t Tell Stories Past The Games, But Is ‘Part 3’ Coming?

There is just one week left until the debut of The Last of Us on HBO, and while I haven’t…loved many of the quotes from Neil Druckmann in the run-up to its release, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and some newer ones are more reassuring.

Namely, in a new interview with THR, Druckmann says that the show will not run into the Game of Thrones problem of attempting to adapt beyond the source material:

“We have no plans to tell any stories beyond adapting the games,” Druckmann says. “We won’t run into the same issue as Game of Thrones since Part II doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.”

It’s always been an open question how HBO plans to tackle the pacing of the games with the show. The common thought would be one game, one season, but given how expansive the games are, and how the show is even adding new characters above and beyond the games, my guess would be more along the lines of two seasons per game, making for four seasons total to fully adapt both games. And of course Part 2 will run into the interesting situation of making Abby a major POV character as opposed the Joel and Ellie duo of the first game.

However, there may be a catch when Druckmann says they’ll only adapt the games. There may be…another game. Naughty Dog has not revealed what its next single player project is after The Last of Us Part 2, but of course a logical guess is that even if Part 2 does not end of a cliffhanger, that Part 3 still could be on the way. And when asked about this, while Druckmann confirms nothing, he does say “I think there’s more story to tell.”

We know that The Last of Us will continue on with the pending release of Factions, a multiplayer spin-off based on the MP mode of the first game, but even if that has some story component to it, I don’t think that’s what Druckmann is talking about here, given that Factions takes place in an entirely separate location from Ellie, Joel and Abby’s story.

In theory, if it does take four years to adapt two Last of Us games into HBO shows, which could take closer to 5 or 6 years given the breaks these shows can take sometimes, that could be enough time for The Last of Us Part 3 to exist with an entirely new story. The Last of Us Part 2 released in 2020, so in theory, production on a secret Part 3 could have already been going on for years, and sure, 3-4 more years might be plenty of time to get out another full game. The Last of Us, the original, was out in 2013, but Naughty Dog also released Uncharted 4 after that as well. I’m just saying, it’s not impossible, and we very well may have both three Last of Us games and a show adapting all of them by the time we’re said and done here.

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