HBO’s The Last of Us mostly kept to the game’s plot, but did make some changes here and there. This is most notably seen in the show’s third episode “Long, Long Time.” In talking about The Last of Us Season 2 and its multi-part approach to the second game, Craig Mazin, co-creator and writer on the series, noted that this mentality still applies.
Esquire asked Mazin about The Last of Us Part II and what happens to Joel in the acclaimed but controversial sequel. While Bella Ramsey said she wouldn’t know if she’d be “emotionally ready for it,” Mazin said that he and Neil Druckmann, fellow co-creator, had no problem killing characters. However, they would not be restricted by what came before.
“This should be fairly obvious to anyone by now, but I don’t fear killing characters,” said Mazin of The Last of Us Season 2. “But the important thing to note is that neither Neil nor I feel constrained by the source material.”
Pedro Pascal also chimed in by saying that it “wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path.” So it seems like monumental changes would be in doubt.
It’s unclear what will change as of now, however, it seems as though Mazin and Druckmann may tackle events in a slightly different fashion in The Last of Us Season 2. Druckmann had previously told Kinda Funny that a lot of the conversations about the next season are about structure, and that process of adapting is still very similar to the first season. They talk about what they want to keep exactly the same, what won’t work logistically, and what could change and talk it through. Druckmann then said that a few of the changes events are “some of the stuff [he’s] most excited for.”
