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The Last of Us Co-Creator Neil Druckmann Offers Big Season 2 Update

The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann shared on social media that he's wrapped his work in Vancouver on the second season.

It's been a little more than a month since we last checked in on how things were going with the second season of Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann's Pedro Pascal (Joel) & Bella Ramsey (Ellie)-starring The Last of Us. That's when the show's co-creators offered some important intel on the second season during an exclusive interview. We learned that the second season will consist of seven episodes – with one "quite big" episode during its run – but future seasons could prove bigger in terms of both the episode count and storyline focus. In addition, if Mazin and Druckmann get to tell the story that they want to tell, the series could be around through at least a fourth season – but we have more on all of that in a minute. For this update, we're passing along some news from this past week that nearly got lost in all of the San Diego Comic-Con and Television Critics Association Summer Press Event news. Though production on the second season continues, Druckmann shared that he has finished filming.

"My time in Vancouver has come to an end. I've had a wonderful time collaborating with some incredibly talented and kind cast and crew. Can't wait for y'all to see what we're cooking!" Druckmann wrote as the caption to an Instagram post that included a commemorative filming slate and the watch he received before wrapping work on the season. "And thanks to production for the best parting gift ever. Easily my favorite watch in my collection!"

Mazin on Season 2 Needing a "Breakpoint": "The story material that we got from Part II 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. 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."

Mazin on Possibly Needing Four Seasons to Tell Their Story: "We don't think that we're going to be able to tell the story even within two 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. 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."

Mazin on Possibly Expanding Character Story Arcs in Season 2: "Sometimes that means we do things just like the game, sometimes we do them differently. I think it'd be fair to say that since we are taking our time to dig into the story and expand certain areas, of course, there are going to be some things that are going to be expanded, but which characters and how we'll keep that secret."

Druckmann on Having "A Goal in Mind" with Season 2: "Our process was, we sketched out multiple seasons, then we did a deep dive on Season 2. To echo what Craig is saying, there is no padding; everything that is in there is intentional. There is always a goal in mind that we're heading towards, we are never meandering the sake of meandering, it's always to say something greater for these characters and the themes."

Mazin on Season 2 Having a "Quite Big" Episode: "Season 1 really was a 10-episode length season in hours. And certainly, in Season 2, there's an episode that is going to be again closer to — I don't know if I would say feature length, but quite big. I like generally hitting about an hour, it's a great length, I love working in that format. What we don't want to do is, say, a season of seven episodes where each episode is 90 minutes; part of why we're doing seven episodes is finding that nice line."

With Season 2 set to hit HBO & Max screens in 2025, Pascal, Ramsey, and Wright will be joined this season by Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, and Danny Ramirez as Manny. In addition, Catherine O'Hara also guest stars. Behind the camera, Mazin and Druckmann will be joined by Peter Hoar (S01E03: "Long, Long Time") are Mark Mylod (HBO's Succession), Nina Lopez-Corrado (HBO's Perry Mason), Stephen Williams (HBO's Watchmen) and Kate Herron (Loki).

HBO's The Last of Us is written and executive-produced by Mazin and Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and is also executive-produced by Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O'Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Evan Wells. PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog serve as the production companies.

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