No, you're not dreaming: Naughty Dog has just confirmed that it's working on 2 new The Last of Us projects — it's official. It was during the now-famous The Last of Us Day, celebrated every 26 September in reference to the start of the outbreak in the series' universe, that Neil Druckmann confirmed the studio was working on two new projects tied to the franchise. The announcement remains deliberately vague, since both productions are only in their earliest stages. “Since the Grounded 2 documentary, we've talked about the possibility of telling other stories in the world of The Last of Us,” Neil Druckmann explained in a message posted on the Naughty Dog blog. “We have two very exciting new projects that are in their very early stages, so we can't say much about them for now. What I can tell you is that both projects will expand the official The Last of Us universe beyond The Last of Us Part I and The Last of Us Part II.”
Neil Druckmann also stressed just how much The Last of Us universe still means to Naughty Dog. The Californian studio doesn't want to go back to it just to churn out another sequel, but because it believes there are still stories worth telling. That said, it's worth paying attention to the word “projects”, since Neil Druckmann never mentioned 2 new games, and Naughty Dog therefore hasn't confirmed that these productions will be video games at all. They could obviously take that form, but projects set in The Last of Us universe on other media wouldn't be a first, given that the studio is already working with HBO on the franchise's television adaptation.
The Last of Us Part Zero
For our part, if we had to put money on one theory, it would obviously be a third instalment as a video game. And rather than picking up straight after the events of The Last of Us 2, another possibility strikes us as particularly interesting: revisiting the 20 years between the start of the outbreak and the meeting between Joel and Ellie. That period remains largely unknown, and all we really know is that Joel and his brother Tommy got through those years doing whatever it took to survive, including some decidedly questionable deeds. The Last of Us deliberately left part of that past in the shadows, even though it would help us better understand how Joel became the man we meet at the start of the first game. It's a subject we'd already explored in video form back when we were still working at Jeuxactu, going over the grey areas of that period and what Naughty Dog had hinted at through dialogue and flashbacks.
That choice would also have the advantage of letting Naughty Dog tell a new story without necessarily coming straight back to Ellie or artificially stretching out her journey. The studio would have a near-blank twenty-year period to play with, in a world that has just collapsed and a society reorganising itself under particularly brutal conditions. Joel and Tommy could sit at the heart of the tale, with their relationship and the events that eventually drove them apart as the through line.
And then there's the appeal of playing as Joel again, without undoing what Naughty Dog told us in The Last of Us Part 2. His death remains one of the most striking moments of the second game, and going back over the years before he met Ellie would let us spend time with the character without erasing that outcome. It would be a way of healing the wound left by the second instalment a little, while adding depth to a character whose story is still partly untold.
Of course, there's nothing to suggest right now that this is what Naughty Dog has in the works. Neil Druckmann simply speaks of two projects still in their earliest stages, without specifying what they are. But if one of them turns out to be The Last of Us Part III, that period before the meeting with Ellie would give the studio an enormous amount of material for a completely new story that's still directly tied to the first 2 games.
