Neil Druckmann, Co-President of Naughty Dog and Creative Director of The Last of Us franchise, recently spoke on the possibility of a third installment of the award winning video game, “The Last of Us Part II.”
Druckmann was on an episode of the “The Script Apart Podcast” where he spoke about the writing process of “The Last of Us III.” Druckmann confirmed that a story outline for Part 3 was created but production and writing had not started yet.
“I don’t know how much I want to reveal… [co-writer Halley Gross] and I did write an outline for a story, that we’re not making – but I hope one day can see the light of day – that explores a little bit what happens after this game. We’ll see,” Druckmann said.
Druckmann mentioned that there has been “quite a bit” of conversations about the possibility of a Part 3. He pointed out the amount of hard work that involved in making a game like The Last of US II.
“These games take so much to make. [Part 2], I’ve been thinking about it for seven years, between when the last game came out and when this came out […] You want to make sure you’re jazzed by the idea that you have, [that] it feels like it’s challenging” said Druckmann.
“We’ve now had two games that I feel speak to something universal as well as telling a very personal story for these characters. With one game, there’s no pattern of what a franchise is. With two games, now there’s starting to be a pattern – now I feel like there are some structural and thematic themes you’d have to stick to if you’re making a third game.”
Fans of The Last of US will have to wait for part three of the video game but can look forward to the HBO TV Adaptation of the video game. HBO’s upcoming series stars Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones) as Joel and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) as Ellie. The upcoming HBO series will follow Joel, a survivor, tormented by the actions of his past, who must travel across pandemic filled America while protecting a girl who represents a symbol of hope for humanity.
Although production has not started on the Last of Us Part III, it seems that Naughty dog is currently deciding what to do next. Druckmann said that Naughty Dog takes a long time on idea exploration.
“We take a long time to explore different ideas, whether it’s going to be Last of Us III, whether it’s something new, whether there’s some old franchise we want to go back to. I like to fully explore all of those, then look at, like: okay, we have all of these ideas in front of us. As a studio, what do we want to commit to? Because it’s a huge commitment – monetary, time, passion, talent, so you think about all the opportunity costs that come with that,” they said
