In recent months and years, there’s been a lot of speculation about what might be in the future for Naughty Dog. We know their ambitious The Last of Us multiplayer project has been canceled and they’re refocusing on multiple single-player titles. There’s also a lot of speculation about where The Last of Us franchise might be going in light of the massive breakout popularity of the TLOU HBO series.
Well, in a new documentary detailing the making of The Last of Us Part II, series mastermind Neil Druckmann gives a surprisingly in-depth answer about the future of the franchise. First off, he admits there was a concept for a post-Part-II story about Tommy. It sounds like this would have been DLC, or perhaps a patented Sony “half-sequel,” but it was ultimately shelved due to production problems at Naughty Dog.
“I did some other interview where someone asked me about The Last of Us and would there be any more stories or something and I mentioned that we have written a story that takes place after The Last of Us 2, that stars Tommy. And I hope one day we get to make it. And the headlines across the industry were, like, "Naughty Dog has outlined The Last of Us Part III," and that's actually wrong. It was always a small story, it was never a full title.
At the time we had higher priorities at Naughty Dog, to fix our pipeline, to fix our work-life balance issues. Just based on where we were, I didn't want to prioritize this story, so that story was shelved. And I still believe one day it will see the light of day. I don't know if it will be a game or a show... TBD.”
As for the next full entry in The Last of Us, Druckmann says he just couldn’t come up with a “clean” concept for it and considered letting the story lie after Part II, but he recently managed to come up with that concept. With that in hand, he thinks there’s probably one more chapter in the TLOU saga…
“The first game had such a clean concept of the unconditional love a parent feels for their child. The second one, once we landed on this idea of the pursuit of justice at any cost, justice for the ones you love, it felt like there was a clean concept here, and there was a throughline from the first game about love. If we never get to do it again, this is a fine ending point. The last bite of the apple, the story's done.
I've been thinking about, "Is there a concept there?" And for now years, I haven't been able to find that concept. But recently that's changed. I don't have a story, but I do have that concept that, to me, is as exciting as [Part I], as exciting as [Part II], is it's own thing, yet has this throughline for all three. So it does feel like... there's probably one more chapter to this story.”
So, does that mean The Last of Us Part III is next from Naughty Dog? Probably not. The Druckmann interview from the documentary was conducted in mid-2023, and in early 2023 Druckmann said they’d already picked their next project. That said, as mentioned, Naughty Dog has since said they’re working on multiple single-player projects now, so perhaps TLOU3 is in the works at the same time as something else.
What do you think? Interesting in continuing The Last of Us journey? What’s your concept for a third one?
