Why The Last of Us 3 Might Not Happen, According to Neil Druckmann

The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann has explained why he doesn’t think fans should expect The Last of Us Part 3 anymore. When something is a massive hit, you sort of just expect there to be a sequel. When you walk out of a Batman movie, you know there will be another one at some point. That’s just how it goes. Granted, not everything needs a sequel and sometimes we’d all be better off if some sequels didn’t get made. However, many have long expected The Last of Us Part 3 to happen at some point. While the second game didn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, it was a pretty dark ending that feels like it’s begging for one last chapter.

It’s also not very common for stories to end after the second entry, usually you get a trilogy that allows for a proper beginning, middle, and end. Naughty Dog heavily implied it was going to make The Last of Us Part 3 at the start of 2024 after creator Neil Druckmann said he had an idea for one last chapter in this story. However, he recently walked back those comments and cast doubt on The Last of Us Part 3, suggesting the second game and the show could be the end of the road.

Neil Druckmann Explains Why The Last of Us 3 May Never Get Made

It seemed pretty strange and there have been rumors that The Last of Us 3 is not only happening, but it’s already filming. ComicBook.com caught up with Neil Druckmann while he was promoting The Last of Us season 2 and asked him why he isn’t committing to The Last of Us Part 3. Largely, it seems to boil down to the fact that he treats every project as his last and can’t foresee a third game at the moment.

“Well, we all get older,” said Druckmann. “We have limited time with the things that we work on. Here’s how I have always approached it, I have never taken my career for granted. Every project I treat like it’s my last one and it started all the way back when I was directing The Last of Us Part 1. I didn’t know if I would get another change at that role again so therefore I was uncompromising. It had to be my way or the highway, but the story was structured in such a way that I had a definitive ending because I didn’t know if I could come back for a sequel or ever revisit that world again. And it became wildly successful, I got to do it again, and I got to work on Uncharted 4, I approached that story the exact same way, it had to have a definitive ending.

“[With] The Last of Us 2, I’m like ‘We’re in a lucky position where we don’t have to make a sequel if we don’t want to,’ but we had an idea that we felt passionate about. It was good enough to spend years on it. We worked on the story, it felt like that story came full circle and it was the definitive ending for this moment in time.”

Druckmann went on to note that he’s got his plate pretty full right now. He’s not only working with showrunner Craig Mazin to adapt The Last of Us Part 2 across multiple seasons of television, but he’s also working on a brand new game called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet which entered development in 2020. Druckmann produces, writes, and even directs some episodes of the TV series on top of running Naughty Dog, so he’s obviously extremely busy. However, he ends his answer by still leaving the door open, just a smidge.

“Right now, I am working on finishing this season, and if we get renewed, we have the next season to work on because we know this adaptation goes beyond a single season. Back at Naughty Dog, we are working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which is something we’ve worked on for many years. That has taken up all of our time. I am treating these projects like it’s the last thing I will ever work on. So, my assumption is there will be no more and if the stars align, we’ll see what happens.”

Some have speculated that maybe The Last of Us TV show could repurpose Druckmann’s idea for a third game and conclude this story altogether without making an entire new game. However, Druckmann claims he doesn’t have any sort of grand, secret plan to do anything like that at this time.

Do you still want to see Naughty Dog make The Last of Us Part 3? Let us know in the comments.