It would seem that The Last of Us series co-creator Neil Druckmann has an idea for one more story to tell. In the new feature-length documentary Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II, Druckmann teases that he has a concept for a third entry for the acclaimed series.
In the new documentary (which you can watch below), Druckmann describes how a quote he had made regarding how Naughty Dog had written a story that takes place after The Last of Us II that involved Tommy Miller, Joel’s younger brother, and that Druckmann hoped to one day make it. “The headlines across the industry were like, ‘Naughty Dog has outlined The Last of Us Part III.’ And that’s actually wrong. It was always a small story, it was never a full title.”
“At the time, we had higher priorities at Naughty Dog, to fix our pipeline, to fix work-life balance issues. Just based on where we were, I didn’t wanna prioritize this story, so that story was shelved. I still believe one day it will see the light of day. I don’t know if it’ll be a game or a show… TBD.”
Druckmann then went on to describe a theme of love that ran through the two games. “The first game had such a clean concept of the unconditional love a parent feels for their child. The second one, once we landed on this idea of the pursuit of justice at any cost, justice for the ones you love, it felt like there’s a clean concept here and there’s a through-line from the first game about love. If we never get to do it again, this is a fine ending point. The last bite of the apple, the story’s done.”
However, Druckmann does say that he has a “concept” for a third entry in the series, describing it “as exciting as I, as exciting as II, is its own thing, yet has this through-line for all three.” Whether or not Naughty Dog will follow through with this concept into a full game is another question, entirely.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered was released this past January for the PlayStation 5. Meanwhile, regarding the HBO adaptation of the series, Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) was announced to be joining the cast for Season 2.
