The next season of The Last of Us is in production, but it will be significantly shorter. There are reasons for this that fans will likely appreciate.
When thinking of good video game adaptations from recent years, “The Last of Us” is probably ranked quite high for most. The series delivered exactly what one would expect from a video game adaptation: In crucial moments, it stayed very close to the source material, while also adding new scenes to meaningfully expand the world and story.
Fans are eagerly awaiting the release of Season 2 – as it is supposed to adapt the second game “The Last of Us Part II”. However, there is now new information – some of it is cause for celebration, while others may lead to grumbling.
The first season of The Last of Us was a massive success for HBO:
What was said? In an interview with Deadline, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who are primarily responsible for the series, revealed that Season 2 of The Last of Us will consist of only seven episodes.
That’s two episodes fewer than Season 1 had. At least one episode will have a “significantly extended” runtime, likely going well over the 60-minute mark that is generally aimed for each episode.
What’s good about the news? The positive news is that Mazin and Druckmann are confident that the following season, i.e., Season 3, will be considerably more extensive. Although they do not provide specific numbers, one can probably expect around ten episodes or even more.
The story material we got from Part II is much more than the story from the first game, so we had to think about how to tell this story over several seasons. When you do that, you look for natural pause points. And when we did that, that point came for us after seven episodes.
Why is the story being divided? Craig Mazin explains that the story of The Last of Us Part 2 is much more extensive than the first part. While he doesn’t say it directly, he hints at the fact that TLOU2 is played from a changing perspective.
One half of the game follows Ellie’s perspective, while the other half puts you in the role of Abby and lets you experience her side of the narrative. The story was even so dramatic in the game that real emotions were involved when playing those scenes.
Since both characters go through very different experiences and each meet many other friends and enemies, there is a lot of material that needs to be addressed.
Too much for a single season.
However, Mazin adds that there’s no need to worry about the quality suffering or things being rushed through. He states:
We want to reassure people. This season will be a bit shorter, not because we’re taking less time to tell the stories, but because we want to take more time for it. The story we’re telling is much bigger than that of Season 1, there is just so much happening, it’s harder to produce, and we want every episode to feel like its own blockbuster.
In fact, this could even get bigger, as Mazin believes that “the story may require a Season 4.”
What do you think about this? Is it good that they are taking so much time and space to tell the very complex story of The Last of Us Part 2? Or does it sound more like they are trying to stretch the source material as long as possible? Let us know in the comments!
