Brace yourselves: 'The Last of Us' is getting a Season 2.

If you thought this season was dark, just you wait.
By
Belen Edwards
 on 
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A man and a teenage girl stand in a darkened museum.
Season 2, incoming. Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

HBO has renewed The Last of Us for a second season, so get ready for more nightmare-inducing Clickers.

Since Season 1 covers the entire events of the first Last of Us game, that means Season 2 will adapt Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II. However, as co-creator Craig Mazin said in an interview with Gizmodo, "I think that the amount of story that remains that we have not covered would be more than a season of television. So assuming we can keep going forward, the idea would be to do more than just one more season."

Based on that, it seems like it will take all of Season 2 and a hypothetical Season 3 to get through the heartbreaking events of The Last of Us Part II. But once that's done, can we expect more seasons of The Last of Us?

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Unless there are any new games, the answer is no. In that same interview, Mazin said, "I am not interested in going beyond the existing source material. As a viewer, I have no problem watching shows that just keep going and going and going. No problem. But as a writer, I don’t want to be in the position of spinning plates to just spool out season after season of stuff."

The new question becomes, will there be more source material? Can we expect The Last of Us Part III? The Last of Us co-creator and Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann addressed this question in an interview with Buzzfeed, saying: "With The Last of Us, it's up to us whether we want to continue it or not. Our process is the same thing we did when we did Part II, which is if we can come up with a compelling story that has this universal message and statement about love — just like the first and second game did — then we will tell that story. If we can't come up with something, we have a very strong ending with Part II, and that will be the end."

The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

A woman in a white sweater with shoulder-length brown hair.
Belen Edwards
Entertainment Reporter

Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness.


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