The Last of Us Season 2 Release Window Gets a Major Update

Fans of The Last of Us will want to set time aside when their calendars flip to 2025. The first season of the HBO Original series concluded in March 2023, leaving fans to wait for the returns of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and all the tension existing between the two following the season finale. While Joel succeeded in saving Ellie’s life from sacrifcing herself to find a cure for the zombie outbreak, Joel killed a lot of people and lied to Ellie about it. Season 2 of The Last of Us can’t come soon enough, but according to the person in charge of programming at HBO/Max, we may not be waiting too much longer.

Deadline spoke to Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, at a post-Emmy party, where Bloys gave some insight on when The Last of Us will return. When asked about the premiere dates for White Lotus and The Last of Us, Bloys replied, “Well, all I’ll say now, generally first half of the year, I expect them to be in the Emmy window.” The first half of 2025 would mean Season 2 of The Last of Us should debut before the end of May, with possibly six episodes out by then in order to be in the running for Emmy consideration.

Will The Last of Us Season 1 get any Emmy nominations in 2025?

With The Last of Us being absent in 2024, that means it wasn’t up for any Emmy nominations when the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards were awarded this weekend. However, if the new season of The Last of Us does come out in the early part of 2025, it will be eligble for noms, as well as House of the Dragon Season 2. This could give HBO some more firepower to add to its Emmy list, after shocking the industry with its win of the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy with Hacks overtaking the heavy favorite, The Bear.

Casey Bloys also gave a small tease for The Last of Us‘ upcoming season, stating, “I think everybody is going to love what [co-creator] Craig [Mazin] is doing.” 

HBO wraps filming on The Last of Us Season 2

The Last of Us wrapped up its filming of Season 2 in August, with the majority of filming taking place in Canada. With filming wrapped, The Last of Us can now concentrate on post-production.

Timothy Good, an editor for The Last of Us, informed fans on social media that Season 2 has now completed filming. Good posted a handful of images from a recent wrap party that was held to celebrate this milestone. The party didn’t only feature the production crew of TLOU, but the area in which it was held featured a ton of iconography tied to the series. As for Good, he implied that his work on Season 2 can now begin more directly as he begins to edit this new slate of episodes. 

Along with Pascal and Ramsey returning as Joel and Ellie, the seven-episode second season stars series newcomers Kaitlyn Dever (No One Will Save You) as the revenge-seeking Abby, Merced (Madame Web) as Dina, Young Mazino (Beef) as Jesse, Danny Ramirez (Captain America: Brave New World) as Manny, Ariela Barer (Runaways) as Mel, Tati Gabrielle (Uncharted) as Nora, Wright (The Batman) as Isaac Dixon, and two-time Emmy winner O’Hara as an as-yet-unrevealed original character.