HBO’s The Last of Us Ending Officially Confirmed (& That’s Good After Season 2)

The Last of Us had quite the controversial second season, and not just thanks to the loss of a certain main character. Naughty Dog’s sequel game garnered quite a bit of attention for almost immediately taking Joel off the board at the start of the digital entry, and the HBO adaptation followed the same course. With the upcoming third season confirmed to continue the story of The Last of Us Part 2, a new interview with an HBO executive seems to hint at season three being the grand finale. Based on the game’s story and the reception to season two, this might be for the best.

In a recent update from HBO and HBO Max’s Chairman and CEO Casey Bloys, the top executive at Warner Bros confirmed that it was looking like The Last of Us would end with season three. Specifically, Bloys stated in response to Deadline asking if Hacks and The Last of Us’s next seasons were their last, “It certainly seems that way, but on decisions like that, we will defer to the showrunners. So you can ask them.” With the third season of the television, more than likely, wrapping the story of the second game, it makes sense that the upcoming episodes will be the show’s last.

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For those who might not have played Naughty Dog’s original PlayStation games, the third season of The Last of Us will flip the script in quite a few ways, should the HBO Max series continue to follow its source material. Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby will take on a far bigger role than what we witnessed in the previous season, offering a fresh take on the woman who killed Pedro Pascal’s Joel to kick off season two. One of the benefits of making this change is seeing how this zombie-infested world isn’t quite what many thought, and how Abby might not be the villain that many think she is.

As of the writing of this article, Naughty Dog hasn’t confirmed whether there will be a third entry in the video game series. Considering how the second game wrapped, it would be interesting to see whether the next potential entry would once again focus on Ellie, Abby, or an entirely new character trying to survive Clicker assaults. In 2024, Naughty Dog executive Neil Druckmann confirmed that he was attempting to decipher a story for a third entry, though nothing has been set in stone.

While The Last of Us might end with its upcoming third season, video game adaptations remain big business in the entertainment world these days. This year alone, Super Mario, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat are all hitting the silver screen, carving out a place for video games in Hollywood. Perhaps some day in the future, video game films might even overtake the likes of Marvel and DC on the silver screen.

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