The Last of Us season 2 episode count revealed, creators tease longer third season 

Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us TV adaptation arrived on screens with its first season back in January 2023. The 9-episode premiere of Season 1 immediately led to worldwide acclaim, and over the months that followed, the series came to be recognized as one of the best-ever live-action depictions of a video game.

Based on the titular characters from the longrunning The Last of Us series, fans saw Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller, a smuggler in the post-apocalyptic world, take on a mission to safely escort Ramsey’s Ellie across the country. Immune to the fungal infection that has all but brought humanity to its knees, Bella Ramsey’s character is crucial to the fate of her entire species.

Season 2, which is set to arrive in 2025, recently saw its episode count confirmed. Fans might be disappointed to know that it only includes a total of 7 episodes, two less than its predecessor, although there is a positive update as well.

Creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann also revealed in a recent interview that Season 3 is going to be ‘significantly larger.’ Further, the fact that Season 2 is shorter is actually indicative of the fact that the creators wish to take their time in telling a story which might even be too long for a total of 4 seasons.

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The Last of Us Season 2 will have only 7 episodes and will be followed by a ‘much larger’ Season 3

The decision to include only 7 episodes in the upcoming Season 2 of The Last of Us was announced back in January. While fans were bound to be worried about the fact that there will be fewer episodes to watch, there are multiple positive updates that suggest a better narrative in the upcoming iteration.

The fact that the season has only 7 episodes is because the source material of the second game calls for a story that needs a ‘breakpoint’:

The 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. When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”

As Mazin explains, this opens the door for a longer Season 3, again, as seemingly demanded by the source material:

“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.”

Furthermore, while there is no confirmation of a Season 4, the two creators obviously believe that the source material asks for one, which is positive news for fans. The two directors also went into detail about the kind of approach that they are taking with respect to the narrative.

Mazin himself explained that the fact that the upcoming season has fewer episodes has nothing to do with their approach and that the creators themselves do not have any intention of taking less time to depict the story.

On the contrary, Mazin claimed that the pacing of The Last of Us Season 1, combined with the fact that the upcoming Season 2 simply has a larger narrative to depict, means that fans will not be disappointed with the upcoming iteration. On the other hand, the aim is to make every episode feel “like its own blockbuster to be honest with you,” in Mazin’s own words. Hence, while a 7-episode Season 2 of The Last of Us will hit HBO later this year, a longer Season 3 appears to be on the cards.

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The Last of Us Season 2 does not have a release date yet, but saw its first-look images being released recently on May 15th, which for the time being rounds off the updates we have available for the upcoming narrative.