Yahoo News The Last of Us Season 2 Episode Count Revealed (and It’s Fewer Than Season 1)
Time heals all wounds, we guess — but Joel and Ellie won’t have as much of it when The Last of Us returns for Season 2.
Series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have confirmed to Deadline that the HBO drama’s sophomore run will span seven episodes, down from the nine installments of Season 1.
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But there’s a silver lining in there: Although The Last of Us has yet to be formally renewed beyond Season 2, Mazin and Druckmann plan to spread out their adaptation of the Last of Us Part II video game across multiple TV seasons, and the hypothetical third season will be “significantly larger” than Season 2, per Mazin.
“The story material that we got from Part Two 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,” Mazin told Deadline. “When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the natural breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.
“We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within [Seasons 2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways, which we did a little bit in Season 1, too,” he continued. “We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4… I don’t see how we could tell the story that remains, after Season 2 is complete, in one more season.”
Mazin assured fans, though, that no matter how many seasons The Last of Us ultimately runs, he and Druckmann will only adapt the two existing video games and will not go beyond the source material.
“As a fan, I’m thrilled that there might be a third Last of Us game,” he clarified. “As the co-creator of this television show, there’s no world where I would want our show to go beyond the source material that people have in the world.”
The Last of Us Season 2 has yet to set a specific premiere date, but HBO boss Casey Bloys shared in May that the show will be back in the first half of 2025. How do you feel about a seven-episode Season 2?
The Last of Us Season 2: Everything We Know So Far
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