HBO Says The Last Of Us Season 2’s Release Date Isn’t Until 2025

It’s not uncommon for big HBO series to take a while to return, as we saw this frequently back in the Game of Thrones days. But now, a combination of big-budget shows and the current Writers Strike, means that some series are not coming back for a very long time indeed, including The Last of Us season 2.

HBO’s head of drama Francesca Orsi is being frank about what shows are returning when due to the Writers Strike, and that means a long, long wait for The Last of Us season 2.

“While everything at this moment is pencils down, I’m hopeful that we can come to terms sooner than later. Otherwise we will have to assess what is the end of the 24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025,” Orsi told Deadline. “We were looking at The Last Of Us for some time in 2025.”

Work on The Last of Us season 2 has stopped because of the writers strike. Co-showrunner and writer Craig Mazin has been seen actively on the picket lines. Originally, with no scripts, actors were auditioning using already-existing dialogue from the video games, but that too has now stopped, reportedly. It’s not yet clear if casting has even finished as a result.

“Some time in 2025” would mean that at the very least, it would be two full years between The Last of Us seasons 1 and 2. It could be two and a half years or more, if it ends up being later in the year instead of January, like season 1 debuted.

We know that season 2 will being adapting the second game immediately, but Mazin has confirmed already that due to the size of the game, it will take more than one season to adapt.

A 2-2.5 year wait for season 2 may help my ongoing theory that by the time season 3 rolls around and finishes the adaption of The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog could potentially be releasing The Last of Us Part III. Again, that may seem crazy until you look at the dates. If The Last of Us season 2 is in 2025, season 3 could be in late 2026 or 2027. Then another 1.5-12 year break and we’re talking 2029, possibly, for a season 4. So yeah, even with all Naughty Dog has going on, I do believe it’s possible a third game could be out around then, even if they’re also working on other projects. They just dramatically scaled back work on TLOU Factions multiplayer, so that’s more team members freed up to work elsewhere. It’s possible that game is cancelled entirely in favor of heading back to single player.

We’ll see what happens, but yes, it’s going to be a very long wait for season 2. Stay tuned.

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