As reported by Deadline, on Sunday, episode 1 of The Last of Us’ second season had over 5.3 million viewers in the US across all platforms that the show streamed on. That’s up from the Season 1 premiere in 2023 – which drew 4.7 million US viewers on day one – by 10 percent. The latter went on to amass over 32 million total viewers, so it should be interesting to see how Season 2’s debut fares.

Interestingly, Deadline also reports that viewership for Season 1 also increased by 150 percent in the week leading up to Season 2’s premiere.

The Last of Us Season 2 has six more episodes left, with the next coming on April 20. Check out a new trailer for the upcoming episodes through here. HBO has also officially greenlit a third season.

From tense encounters with different types of Infected and personal drama between Ellie, Joel, and others to explosive conflict between the WLF and the Seraphites in Seattle and more, plenty is coming up that fans of the source material will be familiar with. As the season’s first episode indicated, however, the show will seemingly continue to expand on The Last of Us Part 2’scontent with its own additions. Check out the trailer below. 

Season 2 of The Last of Us has six more episodes left in its ongoing second season, with the next set to premiere on April 20. A third season has also already been officially greenlit.

HBO announced the news via the official Max Twitter account, accompanying it with a brief teaser that shows… nothing. Given that Season 2 itself hasn’t even premiered its first episode yet, that much, at least, is understandable.

Season 2 of The Last of Us premieres this Sunday, on April 13. In addition to bringing back Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, and Gabriel Luna as Tommy, the new season is also introducing several new key characters in the form of Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, Isabela Merced’s Dina, Young Mazino’s Jesse, and others.

Season 2 will consist of seven episodes, and will cover only part of The Last of Us Part 2– which means we can expect the show to continue to focus on the 2020 game in its third season.

It can’t be for nothing. Season 3 is coming. #TheLastOfUs pic.twitter.com/q5HxyvK9O6

— Max (@StreamOnMax) April 9, 2025

One of the biggest points of discussion for the original The Last of Us has been whether protagonist Joel was correct in making the decision that he made at the end of the game and the first series. For some context, a major part of The Last of Us revolves around Joel trying to escort Ellie to some doctors. Since Ellie is immune to the zombie apocalypse caused by the cordyceps, the doctors want to conduct surgery on her in order to try and find a cure.

Joel, having grown close to Ellie as he spent more and more time with her over the course of the game (and the first season of the show), decides that the fact that Ellie won’t survive the surgery is an unacceptable outcome, and murders his way through the Firefly base and kills the doctors that are about to operate on Ellie before they can get started.

“I believe Joel was right,” Druckmann said when asked about his thoughts on the matter during a press tour before the second season of The Last of Us premieres. “If I were in Joel’s position, I hope I would be able to do what he did to save my daughter.”

“But I’d like to think that I wouldn’t,” responded showrunner Craig Mazin. “That’s the interesting push and pull of the morality of it. And that’s why the ending of the first game is so provocative and so wonderful. It just doesn’t let you off the hook as a player.”

“People get to the end of [the game] and there is that question, what would you do? What should you do if faced with the opportunity to save the world, if you sacrifice your child. That goes back to Abraham and Isaac. It’s so profound. The notion of sacrifice to save the world.”

“It’s a difference between, OK, if I had to kill a random person to save who knows how many lives, in the abstract, you would say, well, yeah, that makes sense, of course,” said Druckmann, continuing on from Mazin. “But now, remove it from being a random person and it’s your kid. Now the answer is very different.”

Members of the TV adaptation’s cast have also offered up their own thoughts on whether Joel was ultimately correct in his decision. Interestingly, Bella Ramsey (who plays Ellie in the show) believes that Joel indeed saved a world. “Yeah, he saved his world, just not the world,” she said.

Season 2 of The Last of Us is all set to premiere on April 13. The show will feature Pedro Pascal reprising his role as Joel, along with Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby. In the meantime, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is also going to make its way on to PC later this week.

“Every game I make, every project I work on, I treat it like it could be my last,” he said. “So I just pour everything into it, I leave nothing on the table.”

“When we did the first Last of Us game, that’s how I treated it,” he continued. “I wasn’t sure I could ever get to make a sequel, so it had to have a definitive ending. Likewise, when I worked on Uncharted 4, same thing. When I worked on Last of Us 2, I was like I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do this again. It had this definitive ending.”

Druckmann goes on to expand on his working process, where he likes to focus on individual projects, regardless if the project is a new IP altogether, or a sequel to an older game.

“That is the ending we’re working towards,” he said. “For there to be another one, another thing, another project, so many stars have to align, I can’t guarantee it. So right now, my focus is on this season, and hopefully if HBO renews us, next season. And then I’m working on a new game called [Intergalactic].”

“One project at a time. Got to make it the best that it can be. And then if I get the chance to do it again, I’ll focus on the next project.”

The statement came as an answer to the interviewer asking Druckmann about him having previously said that fans of The Last of Us shouldn’t bet on there being any of the franchise down the line.

“Don’t bet on there being more of Last of Us,” said the interviewer, quoting Druckmann. “This could be it.”

Druckmann had previously spoken about how he doesn’t like to plan out sequels in advance. Speaking with Sony Santa Monica’s Cory Barlog, Druckmann said that he never saw games as franchises. He echoed similar statements in this conversation about treating every project as if it is going to be the only one in the franchise.

“I think you’re jinxing yourself if you’re starting to think about the sequel when you’re working on the first game,” explained Druckmann. “So when I was making The Last of Us 2, yeah, sure. Every once in a while, an idea pops into your head of where it might go if we get the chance to do another one. But I just approach it as, ‘What if I never get to do another one?’…I’m not saving some idea for the future. If there’s a cool idea, I’m doing my best to get it into here.”

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is on its way to PC on April 3. Check out the required PC specs here, and also check out some of the features and options that will be available in the PC release here. And in the meantime, stay tuned for the second season of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, which will premiere on April 13.

“We’re learning and growing through this process, which is giving us more confidence that we should do more,” said Spencer. “We learned from doing Halo. We learned from doing Fallout. So all of these build on themselves. And obviously we’ll have a couple that miss. But what I’d say to the Xbox community that likes this work is, ‘You’re going to see more, because we’re gaining confidence and we’re learning through this.’”

The statement from Spencer comes leading up to the theatrical release of A Minecraft Movie. The movie’s title, according to Legendary’s chairman of worldwide production Mary Parent, comes from the fact that Minecraft as a game doesn’t have a singular story to it. Rather, owing to the title’s sandbox nature, there are many possible stories that can be told through it.

“We’re calling it ‘A Minecraft Movie’ because we’re respecting the fact that there’s no one story that drives the game,” said Parent to variety.

A Minecraft Movie had been in production for quite some time. The first mentions of a movie based on the game being in production came all the way back in 2014, before Minecraft developer Mojang was even acquired by Microsoft.

As for Halo‘s adaptation, the show got two seasons before ultimately being cancelled by Paramount+. The cancellation came in light of the heavy criticism faced by the TV show. Aside from Halo, however, other adaptations of video games have been seeing quite a bit of success. Other than the massive franchise that the Sonic the Hedgehog movies have turned into, there have also been critically acclaimed TV adaptations of The Last of Us (via HBO) and Fallout (via Amazon Prime).

The success of the Fallout adaptation was notable enough that it saw many players, new and returning, play games from throughout the franchise. Fallout 76 creative director Jon Rush spoke about this recently, saying that players were going all the way back to titles like Fallout 3.

“The game continues to be a success,” said Rush about Fallout 76. “We definitely saw a lot of success last year with the release of the show and the show kind of casting a bit of a spotlight on all the Fallout IP. So, there were people hopping into Fallout 3, 4, 76. 76 is still thriving, it’s still growing. We have more ideas than we could possibly ever do and have no plans to stop. We’re going to continue supporting this game, continue supporting our players and telling the story. There’s never been a better time to adventure with your friends in the wasteland.”

The Last of Us, on the other hand, is set to premier its second season on April 13. Leading up to the first episode of its second season, a new trailer was released for the show.

We’ll leave those unspoiled for those who’re heading into uncharted territory with Season 2, but there’s plenty of note to talk about nonetheless. In addition to showing the likes of Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Isaac (Jeffrey Wright(, and others, it also showcases a significantly larger number of Infected.

New factions and locations that fans of the game will find familiar are also shown, while one shot also seems to suggest that spores, which were absent in Season 1, will be making their introduction in Season 2. Check out the trailer below.

The Last of Us Season 2 will premiere on April 13. The season will consist of seven episodes.

With that, many have taken it as a fact that Naughty Dog will, at some point, make The Last of Us Part 3. However, series creator and Naughty Dog head honcho Neil Druckmann himself isn’t quite so sure.

Speaking in a recent interview with Variety, when asked about a third Last of Us game, Druckmann said there are no guarantees that Naughty Dog will make one and that 2020’s The Last of Us Part 2 could be the end of the series.

“I was waiting for this question. I guess the only thing I would say is don’t bet on there being more of Last of Us. This could be it.”

Of course, it’s fair to say that few will believe him, and many might even strongly believe that The Last of Us Part 3 is in the works right now. Druckmann himself has certainly made statements in the past that seemingly allude to that being the case.

Back in 2021, he said he had a story outline in mind for The Last of Us Part 3. Meanwhile, in a development documentary for The Last of Us Part 2 released last year, Druckmann spoke once again about his ideas for a sequel, saying, “it does feel like there’s probably one more chapter to this story.” Read more on through here.

In 2023, Naughty Dog confirmed it had multiple major single-player titles in development. Last December, one of those was officially confirmed to be a sci-fi action-adventure game Intergalactic.

The Last of Us franchise has sold over 37 million units as of January 2023. Season 2 of HBO’s adaptation premieres next month.

Max announced on Twitter, where the streaming platform also unveiled three new posters showcasing Pedro Pascal’s Joel, Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, and Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby, who will be among the key characters this season. You can view the posters below.

They will be joined by Gabriel Luna and Rutina Wesley, playing Tommy and Maria, respectively. Newcomers will include Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, and Spencer Lord as Owen, among others. Jeffrey Wright, who played the role of Isaac in The Last of Us Part 2, will reprise his role from the game.

Season 2 will cover only part of The Last of Us Part 2, and consists of seven episodes.

Every path has a price.#TheLastOfUs returns April 13 on Max. pic.twitter.com/KRccalszIq

— Max (@StreamOnMax) February 19, 2025

Every path has a price.#TheLastOfUs returns April 13 on Max. pic.twitter.com/prGsEfBIlo

— Max (@StreamOnMax) February 19, 2025

Every path has a price.#TheLastOfUs returns April 13 on Max. pic.twitter.com/fZFhrQJeLF

— Max (@StreamOnMax) February 19, 2025

Conversing with Sony Santa Monica’s Cory Barlog, Druckmann said he doesn’t really see games as franchises, and he approaches writing stories for his games as if they’re going to be the only release in the series.

“That’s a very easy question for me to answer because I never think about multiple games because I’m the game in front of us is so all-consuming,” said Druckmann in response to a question about character development over multiple games.

“I think you’re jinxing yourself if you’re starting to think about the sequel when you’re working on the first game. So when I was making The Last of Us 2, yeah, sure. Every once in a while, an idea pops into your head of where it might go if we get the chance to do another one. But I just approach it as, ‘What if I never get to do another one?’…I’m not saving some idea for the future. If there’s a cool idea, I’m doing my best to get it into here.”

Druckmann further explained this thought process, stating that when the time comes for a sequel to one of his games, he looks back at the previous title to figure out where he can take the characters, and what plot elements are still left to be explored. “And if I feel like the answer is, they can’t go anywhere, then I go, ‘I think we’ll just kill them off,’” he said.

“I’m half joking, but we just find the next game,” he continued. “When we made Uncharted 1, we had no idea we would do the train sequence of Uncharted 2, or where Nathan Drake would be. We figured it out when we made Uncharted 2.

“And eventually, the same when we worked on Uncharted 3, same when we worked on Uncharted 4, where we look back and say, ‘How do we not repeat ourselves? Where else could this character go? What else could get him back into the adventure?’ And we have to come up with a new answer. And if we don’t have a new answer, we should ask ourselves, is this the right character? Is this the right game for us to work on? Or is it time to find something new?”

Barlog, on the other hand, spoke about having more intricate storylines that span over multiple games. He compares this approach to the infamous conspiracy board scene from TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where Charlie Day’s character believes that he is uncovering a vast conspiracy of some sort.

“It’s just so magical, but it is absolutely, unequivocally the most unhealthy thing ever because it is insanely stressful to try to fold and connect each of these pieces,” said Barlog. “Because give or take five years, there are hundreds of people involved, and then a whole new group of people often are moved in on the next project. That’s a bunch of different perspectives and likes and dislikes that are going to negatively impact you setting something up that early. And they’re going to be like, ‘Let’s talk about this because that was kind of the dumb. I don’t know if I want to do that.’”

“I think for me that requires a level of confidence I just don’t have,” replied Druckmann. “Like this is going to be so successful, I know where this is going next. I’m like, I just want to focus on the next five days in front of me, let alone 10 years down the line.”

Neil Druckmann has been with Naughty Dog for quite some time, having worked on several critically acclaimed games, including the Uncharted franchise, as well as The Last of Us and its sequel. The studio is currently working on an entirely new game, Intergalactic, which is in development for PS5 and said to be inspired by Akira and Cowboy Bebop.