‘The Last of Us’ ‘Likely’ to End After Four Seasons, HBO Exec Says

By the time The Last of Us wraps its second season this year, the show will already be halfway over. As the hit Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey-starring series, based on Naughty Dog’s video game of the same name, prepares to make its long-awaited return to screens this April, HBO’s Francesca Orsi revealed that “it’s looking like” The Last of Us will only run for four seasons.

Orsi opened up about the show’s “end game” during a recent discussion with Deadline ahead of the Season 2 premiere this spring. Although Orsi admitted that they don’t yet “have a complete or final plan,” she told the outlet, “I think it’s looking like four seasons.” She clarified, “I wouldn’t want to confirm that, but it’s looking like this season and then two more seasons after this and we’re done.”

Orsi’s remarks echo those of series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who shared back in June that they were likely eyeing a three or four-season run. Discussing the show’s future, Mazin told Deadline, “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.”

“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,” he continued.

Based on the video game series of the same name, The Last of Us is set 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed by a mass fungal infection caused by a mutation in the genus Cordyceps, turning humans into cannibalistic creatures. The series centers around Joel, a hardened survivor hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone.

Season 1 of the series adapted The Last of Us, the first game in the action-adventure video game series that was released in 2013. The upcoming second season is set to adapt The Last of Us: Part II, which was released in June 2020. Unlike Season 1, however, the second season will only adapt a portion of the game, Mazin previously stating that “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.” He explained that as they began to “look for natural breakpoints” and “laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”

It’s unclear if the storyline in The Last of Us Part II will stretch between the possible future third and fourth seasons, which haven’t been officially announced. The Last of Us Part III is confirmed to be in the works, but doesn’t yet have a release date. It is believed the game is still in the early stages of development.

The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on HBO and Max this April.