Naughty Dog just released a two hour documentary about the making of The Last of Us Part 2, a fascinating look at the controversial, widely awarded video game. And of course, somewhere in those two hours some news was made. Neil Druckmann says that he’s figured out a concept for The Last of Us Part 3 because there “probably is one more chapter to this story.”
My theory used to be that The Last of Us Part 3 would be timed so it would release and given the HBO show more content to work with after Part 2 was split into seasons 2 and 3 of that show, which we already know is happening. That could have been maybe four years from now, but the timeline doesn’t add up for that based on Druckmann’s comments.
Naughty Dog’s next game will not be The Last of Us Part 3, it’s something else, likely a supposed sci-fi IP they’re working on for Sony, which no, is not a live service. After The Last of Us Factions fell apart, Naughty Dog outright declared they’d remain a single player studio, so here we are.
But Druckmann’s comments indicate that The Last of Us Part 3 is likely miles and miles away. I’m talking like, the next decade, as given both development time and a wholly new game coming out before it, that’s probably at least 2030, given that we are just in the “I came up with an idea for it” stage.
There are no hints given about the story content of the game. It’s safe to assume Ellie would return, though I doubt most people predicted a second Last of Us game would largely be without Joel, so who knows. A larger question would be if Abby would return after the events of the second game, or if her part in the story is over.
The Last of Us just finished casting Abby for season 2 of the show, who will be played by Kaitlyn Dever, who also read for Ellie when the show was first being conceived. But because of the strikes, The Last of Us season 2 will not arrive until 2025.
But yeah, on the generous side, I don’t think The Last of Us Part 3 will get here any sooner than five years from now. There were seven years between The Last of Us Part 1 and 2, with Uncharted 4 in the middle. Seven years after TLOU would be 2027, but again, just being in the “concept” stage does not really set the stage for release three years from now. So we’ll be waiting a long while for this one and you will probably be playing it on your PS6.
Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Read the full article here
