HBO’s The Last of Us Season 3 is set to be longer than its recently wrapped second season, according to sole showrunner and series co-creator Craig Mazin.
Speaking on the upcoming season via an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mazin promised a longer runtime compared to the previous seven-episode run, although he did not specify the exact count.
“We’re kind of fiddling around with that — it’s a little bit of a trade secret at the moment,” Mazin teased, “But I will say that season three will be longer than season two. Season three will be more on par with season one. More bang for the buck.” For context, The Last of Us Season 1, which aired in 2023 and adapted the events of the original 2013 game, ran across nine episodes, so it’s currently unclear if Season 3 will match this number or possibly exceed it.
Like the second half of the show’s source material, the 2020 game sequel, The Last of Us Part II, the adaptation will shift focus to Abby’s (played by Kaitlyn Dever in the show) perspective, as she ventures the streets of Seattle alongside the Washington Liberation Front (WLF). It remains to be seen how the show will adapt these events, however, although Mazin had previously stated that a fourth season was essential in completing the story, meaning the season would possibly end during the climactic face-off between Abby and Ellie, leaving the game’s epilogue segment for its fourth season.
The show’s third season also follows in the wake of a shakeup at HBO, with series co-creator and original game director Neil Druckmann stepping away from the show in July to focus on other projects. Despite his exit, Mazin claims that this hasn’t affected the writing process and that things will go on as per usual.
“I don’t think it is, in the sense that I was pretty much a monk just writing in a room by myself for most of the time, regardless,” Mazin explained, “When we made season two, we really were thinking about what comes after because you can’t really tell half of that story without thinking about what the whole story should be. Neil’s always had a full-time job running Naughty Dog, so it’s always been me up in Canada, and, ultimately, things are pretty much going to proceed as usual.”
The Last of Us Season 3 is expected to premiere on HBO Max in 2027.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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