"Don't Bet On" There Being A Last Of Us: Part 3, Neil Druckmann Says

Despite previously hinting at a potential The Last of Us: Part III, game series creative director and co-writer Neil Druckmann is telling fans "not to bet" on another chapter in the franchise.

Speaking with Variety ahead of the second season of HBO's The Last of Us show, Druckmann gave a not exactly reassuring update to fans eagerly awaiting news about a third game in the series.

"I guess the only thing I would say is don't bet on there being more of 'Last of Us,'" Druckmann said when asked about a potential third entry. "This could be it."

It's a quite different answer from one Druckmann gave a year ago in the Grounded II: Making The Last of Us: Part II documentary. In it, Druckmann made The Last of Us: Part 3 sound likely. He said at the time there is probably "one more chapter to this story," and that for years he had been unable to find a concept for a third game in the series. However, that had recently changed, with an idea that Druckmann said would "be its own thing" yet feature a "throughline" that would potentially connect all three games.

"I don't have a story," Druckmann said in the documentary. "But I do have a concept that is, to me, as exciting as [Part] 1, exciting as 2.

Following the cancelation of The Last of Us multiplayer game in December 2023, Naughty Dog confirmed it was working on two single-player projects. One of those games, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, was revealed during The Game Awards last year. While many fans had assumed The Last of Us: Part III was one of the two games Naughty Dog was working on, that might not be the case.

Even if The Last of Us: Part III doesn't come to fruition, there will still be new aspects to the story for fans to discover as part of the HBO adaptation of Part II. In the Variety interview, Druckmann said there will be a number of changes compared to the game, calling it a "different version" of the story.

"I love the changes that we've made," he said. "It's a different version of that story, but its DNA is in there. Maybe more than excited, I'm really curious what their [fans] reaction will be.

Druckmann previously said that even if the show should last for several more seasons, it will not go beyond the events of the games.

The Last of Us Season 2 debuts April 17 on HBO and will consist of seven episodes total, with the story picking up five years later as Joel and Ellie find themselves growing apart following the events of Season 1. A remastered version of The Last of Us: Part II will release on PC April 3.