The creators behind smash hit video game adaptation, The Last of Us, have revealed that the events of The Last of Us Part II will take place over “more than one season.” Speaking with GQ, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed that the epic scope of The Last of Us Part II will take a little longer than one season to depict...though they kept tight-lipped about how many seasons it will take.
Asked whether the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us will “encompass such a large game,” Mazin replied, “No. No way.” Druckmann quickly followed up saying, “It’s more than one season.” Asked how many seasons it might take to adapt The Last of Us Part II, Mazin added, “You have noted correctly that we will not say how many. But more than one is factually correct. [Laughs].”
Druckmann meanwhile teased certain changes that will be made when bringing the second game to live action life, while maintaining the same “feelings” that players got from the critically acclaimed source material.
"Some of the stuff I'm most excited for [in Part 2] are the changes we've discussed and seeing the story come to life again in this other version. And I think it's exciting because it leans into those feelings you had from the game, really heavily, in a new way.”
Released in 2020 and ultimately winning more than 320 Game of the Year awards, The Last of Us Part II continues the story of Ellie and her survival in the post-apocalyptic landscape. And that’s all we’re going to say right now because there would be potential spoilers galore, otherwise.
The Last of Us Has Been a Critical Hit for HBO
While The Last of Us Part II was divisive in some respects, particularly its narrative direction, fans will no doubt be pleased to hear that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann will be giving the story a lot of time to evolve over several seasons. Asked whether they think adapting The Last of Us Part II will result in some of the same reactions from audiences as it did players, Druckmann said...
“I guess, to go back to the earlier [Todd Phillips] quote from Craig, which is like... I don't care. How they react is how they react, that is completely outside of our control. So how do we make the best TV show version of that story? That's the problem that we wrestle with every day.”
Mazin meanwhile used the third episode of season one as an example of how they plan to approach any quote, unquote ‘controversial’ themes or ideas.
"To the extent that the storylines move people to rage, confusion, or disappointment or anger. Well that, I suppose, is preferable to the worst possible outcome, which is indifference. There's been a lot written about the third episode of this season, and it's an episode we're very proud of, and it moved a lot of people. It's one of the lower-rated shows on IMDb for one reason – a lot of people came on and gave it a 1/10. Not 5/10. One. The median score on that episode is 10. And the mean is an 8 or something. And that's because there are incredibly strong opinions one way or the other. But I would much rather have a show that lives off of 10s and 1s, than a show that lives off of 5s.”
The Last of Us follows Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, and takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. The first series of The Last of Us came to an end yesterday, with a second season already on the way.