The Last of Us games may not get another video game release, implies series creator Neil Druckmann in an interview with Variety. The main focus of the interview was on the upcoming second season for the HBO series adaptation, but a quick blurb at the end shows Druckmann might have his doubts for future entries, surprisingly. At the possibility of a “Part III,” he says, ““I guess the only thing I would say is don’t bet on there being more of The Last of Us. This could be it.”
Needless to say, this is quite surprising news, considering that just last year Druckmann said he had a “concept” for a third game and at the time he thought there was one more chapter of the story to tell. This was not long after the multiplayer spin-off Naughty Dog was developing was publicly cancelled, so it’s unclear exactly what has changed since then.
Why would The Last of Us games not continue?
Reading into the rest of the Variety interview may give some hints that Druckmann and the rest of the Naughty Dog team might be worried about the fallout of another entry. In the beginning months of the 2020 pandemic, information for The Last of Us Part II leaked and then the game’s full release came and there was a lot of vitriol online from a misogynistic crowd concerning the character Abby and players upset about the conclusion for Joel’s story. Druckmann reveals in the interview he was worried that he might have actually ruined the game’s story following all of the hate posting. It’s just speculation on our end, but we wonder if that might still be a key contributor to him being non-committal on a new entry in the future.
The Last of Us is seen as one of PlayStation’s biggest IPs currently, so even if Naughty Dog focus entirely on their new game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and leave behind Ellie like they have Crash, Jak, and Nathan Drake in the past, there is a chance another studio could make more games. If that’s the case, though, there’s a lot of room for it to not feel the same. Of course, there’s also the very real chance that Druckmann is still working on a new story for the game on the side and just wants to focus on the series and Intergalactic right now.
