The Last of Us season 2 will be a little bit shorter

4 months ago

‘We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons,’ says co-creator Craig Mazin.

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

Jun 5, 2024, 9:01 PM UTC

The first season of HBO’s The Last of Us covered the first game in the series, but it looks like season 2 will need a little more time to explore the sequel. In an interview with Deadline, co-creator Craig Mazin explained that the story of The Last of Us Part II will take at least two, and possibly three, seasons to fully cover. And as a result, the show’s second season will be a few episodes shorter than the first.

“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,” Mazin explained. “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.” (Season 1 clocked in at nine episodes, for comparison.)

The good news for fans is that even though HBO has yet to confirm additional seasons, it sounds like Mazin is pretty confident that more are coming. “I don’t see how we could tell the story that remains after season 2 is complete in one more season,” he explained.

It’s still going to be a wait, though, as season 2 of The Last of Us isn’t expected until 2025. So far, we’ve heard about a number of new cast members, including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, and Jeffrey Wright reprising the role of Isaac Dixon. HBO also released the first two photos from the show back in May — though they don’t show any of the new characters.

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