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The Last Of Us Season 2 Will Only Be Seven Episodes Long

6 June 2024, 12:20

The Last of Us season 2 will only be 7 episodes long. Picture: HBO

By Katie Louise Smith

The Last of Us co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have also confirmed that season 3 will be "significantly larger".

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Filming on The Last of Us season 2 is officially underway, but we've got both good and bad news for fans looking forward to diving into the next chapter of the story... Season 2 will only consist of seven episodes.

In an new interview with Deadline, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann teased a whole host of new details about what fans can expect from the upcoming adaptation of The Last of Us: Part II's hugely expansive storyline.

Back in 2023, Mazin and Druckmann confirmed that Part II's storyline is so big that there's no way it could be told in one full season. Fans were expecting to see quite a large chunk of the story played out in season 2, but now things appear to have shifted slightly.

When The Last of Us season 2 finally arrives in 2025 with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey back in action as Joel and Ellie, it will be seven episodes long – two episodes shorter than season 1.

Read more: The Last of Us season 2 casts Kaitlyn Dever as Abby

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will return in The Last of Us season 2. Picture: Alamy

Explaining the reason behind the shorter season, Mazin said: "The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons."

"When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes," he continued.

Each episode in season 2 is set to be around one hour long, with one episode being "quite big" in length.

Fans have already started speculating about where and when in the story the "natural breakpoint" could possibly occur and, well, if you've played the original game, you'll probably know exactly what everyone is thinking right now... (No spoilers here!)

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So, if the bad news is that season 2 will only consist of 7 episodes, what's the good news? The good news is that season 3 will be "significantly larger" and the storyline may also spill over into a potential season 4.

"We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too," Mazin added.

"We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4."

No release date has been confirmed for The Last of Us season 2 yet, but filming is underway and it will arrive on HBO at some point in 2025. With the shorter episode count, it could also arrive much sooner than expected.