It’s been a couple years waiting for the return of HBO’s seminal adaptation of Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic, cinematic trauma simulator The Last of Us—not unlike waiting for the next chapter in a video game saga. But now, after a long, long time, we finally know: The Last of Us is back April 13.
In a new press release HBO confirmed that the seven-episode sophomore season will begin just a couple of months from now in the 9 p.m. ET/PT slot on the cable network on Sunday, April 13, with episodes simultaneously releasing to stream on Max. To mark the news, three new posters were also released, featuring Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and series newcomer Kaitlyn Dever as Joel, Ellie, and Abby, respectively.
The Last of Us Season 2 Release Date Posters
Season two will pick up five years after the events of The Last of Us‘ debut season, which ended with Joel making the controversial decision to save Ellie from a Firefly facility where she had been taken for experimentation to develop a potential cure to the cordyceps virus that had ravaged the world, based on her own immunity. Beginning to adapt the events of Naughty Dog’s own 2020 video game sequel The Last of Us Part II, the season will follow Joel and Ellie as they come into conflict with not just with the ever-evolving apocalyptic world around them, but also each other.
Aside from its truncated episode count, the only other certain thing we know about season two so far is that it will only cover part of the events of Part II, rather than completely adapting the game as season one did for the first game. The Last of Us had initially planned to only run for three seasons, but in splitting its take on Part II across multiple seasons, the opportunity for more than just a second and third season has remained on the table.
“We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [two and three] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in season one too,” showrunner Craig Mazin said in an interview with Deadline last summer. “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 three will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require season four.”
What that means for where season two pauses the story? Well, game fans have been speculating about that almost as long as we’ve been waiting for season twp. At least now we know that we don’t have much longer to wait before we start finding out ourselves.
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