We learned the surprising news earlier this summer that “The Last of Us” video game creator Neil Druckmann would be departing the HBO series adaptation of the game, which wrapped up its second season back in May. Druckmann co-created the series and had been heavily involved alongside Craig Mazin, but it seems he’s accomplished everything he set out to.
“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO,” Druckmann said back in July. “With work completed on Season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on Season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects.”
He continued, “Co-creating the show has been a career highlight. It’s been an honor to work alongside Craig Mazin to executive produce, direct, and write on the last two seasons.”
Two months later, Druckmann sat down for a new interview with Variety published this afternoon that provides a bit more insight into his decision to leave the show behind.
“Our goals for the show — I had multiple goals, some of them were selfish. I wanted to elevate The Last of Us beyond the people that have played the game,” Druckmann explains to Variety. “I felt like that story could find a bigger audience for people that will never play video games. I wanted to elevate Naughty Dog, and PlayStation has been a home for me for 21 years now, and it’s given me all the support to tell these wonderful stories, and I wanted to elevate video games. It was such a crazy goal, but I wanted someone to watch this show and have no idea it was based on the video game, and then be like, ‘Wait, that’s based on a video game?’”
He continues, “We have this data: People have watched the show and have come back and bought a PlayStation or bought it on PC and have played The Last of Us, and that has become this gateway for them, for this medium that I love so much. But it was really hard work, and I was really there in the weeds to get Season 1 off the ground, and then it was important to get [Season 2 and the storyline for] game 2 off the ground as well, because I love that story so much. But now I felt like the path has been set for it. It was time to go back to the thing that started it all, which is just full-time video game work. But other things are coming and we can announce more things soon.”
Craig Mazin will now serve as the sole showrunner and lead writer for the series.
As for what’s ahead, the upcoming third season of HBO’s “The Last of Us” will primarily tell Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) side of the story. It’s the same approach taken by the video game The Last of Us Part II, which the HBO series is adapting across at least two seasons of television.
“The Last of Us” Season 3 will show us what Abby was up to while Ellie was hunting her down in Seattle. “Abby is the hero of her story,” series co-creator Craig Mazin recently noted.
