The Last of Us Season 3: What We Know So Far

We haven’t yet reached the last of The Last of Us. Ahead of the highly anticipated season 2 premiere in April 2025, HBO announced that the hit sci-fi series—based on the popular PlayStation video game franchise of the same name—has already been renewed for a third season.

The announcement didn’t come as a surprise. Co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had spent months dropping hints that they would need multiple seasons to adapt the games The Last of Us: Part I

and The Last of Us: Part II, and that Part II’s storyline, in particular, would stretch well beyond season 2. As Mazin told Deadline in 2024, “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 to go down interesting pathways, which we did a little bit in season 1, too. Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require season 4.” (Similarly, HBO executive Francesca Orsi told the outlet in February 2025 that “it’s looking like four seasons.”)

Even before these teases, there was little doubt the series would continue as long as necessary. Actress Bella Ramsey, who plays protagonist Ellie Williams, told ELLE in 2023 that she would play the character for as long as HBO wanted her. “There’s no limits for me,” Ramsey says. “They can do as many games as they like, as many series as they like, and I’ll be here, flying back out to Canada.” (Mazin also shared his enthusiasm with ELLE, adding that, “To get to the end of the story in the time that we need to take to get to the proper end would be awesome. If I got to work on a set with Bella Ramsey every day for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled.”)

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However, major news soon arrived in July 2025, when fans learned that Druckmann would depart the HBO series in favor of his commitments with Naughty Dog, the game studio for which he serves as head. “I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creativeinvolvement in

The Last of Us on HBO,” he said in a statement shared with press. “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, including writing and directing our exciting next game.” He reiterated that the show would, indeed, go on without him: “I look forward to HBO and PlayStation Productions continuing Ellie and Abby’s story next season.”

Here’s what we know so far about season 3.

What will season 3 of The Last of Us be about?

Season 3 will take a backwards time jump to “Seattle Day One,” depicting Abby’s story during the same time period that Ellie and Dina are searching for her in season 2. In a

GQ interview published after the finale, Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Abby, said, “I think Craig [Mazin] is still trying to write the season. I have no idea what their plans are. Craig says [season 3] is even more intense than season 2, which I don’t know how…[But] that’s all he told me.”

In a May 2025 interview with Collider, Mazin responded to questions about the potential length of season 3, given that season 2 covers only a portion of the Part II plot.

“I think there’s a decent chance that season 3 will be longer than season 2, just because the manner of that narrative and the opportunities it affords us are a little different,” he explained. “The thing about Joel’s death is that it’s so impactful. It’s such a narrative nuclear bomb that it’s hard to wander away from it [in season 2]. We can’t really take a break and move off to the side and do a Bill and Frank story.”

Mazin continued, “I’m not sure that will necessarily be true for season 3. I think we’ll have a little more room there. But certainly, there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That’s the most likely outcome.”

It is also part of the original game narrative that the perspective shifts from Ellie to Abby, showcasing her backstory and perspective as someone traumatized by Joel’s actions in Part I

. As the season 2 finale makes clear in its final moments, Abby’s saga will indeed enter the spotlight in season 3.

Who will be cast in season 3 of The Last of Us
?

We can expect Ramsey to return as Ellie, as well as Dever as Abby and Isabela Merced as Dina. Whether or not Pedro Pascal will make an appearance in a flashback is as yet unclear. Other cast members likely to return include Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, and Alanna Ubach as Hanrahan.

Has production started for season 3 of The Last of Us?

In an interview with Variety released May 4, 2025, actress Isabela Merced who plays Dina, discussed some production expectations. When asked if she knew when filming of season 3 would begin, Merced replied, “No, but I think it should be next year.”

When will season 3 of The Last of Us come out?

On July 15, HBO and Max’s content chairman and CEO, Casey Bloys, addressed season 3’s release date. “The series is definitely planned for 2027,” Bloys told

Variety. “Craig [Mazin] is still working it out whether it will be two more seasons or one more long season. It hasn’t been decided yet, and I’m following Craig’s lead on that.”

The Closest We're Getting To The Walking Dead Season 12 Is This 2-Year-Old Miniseries

The Walking Dead changed direction in the early 2020s, as possible plans for a twelfth season morphed into a series of spinoffs that would take the main cast members across the United States and beyond. Predictably, these spinoffs more or less tell their own separate stories.

The Walking Dead: Dead City finds Maggie and Negan embroiled in New York drama years after the main show's conclusion, while Daryl Dixon examines the outbreak's aftermath in Europe.

While both are worthy additions to AMC's

The Walking Dead timeline, structuring the franchise in such a way meant ignoring the many plot points left over from season 11. As such, calls to reunite the cast have never completely gone away. Franchise-runner Scott M. Gimple confirmed he was "

not against" doing The Walking Dead season 12, but that was in 2023 and there has been no movement since.

As The Walking Dead season 12 begins drifting further into the distance, it's worth remembering that the closest we're likely to get is a miniseries from almost two years ago.

The Ones Who Live Was The Walking Dead Season 12 In All But Name

Released in 2023, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live was, to all intents and purposes,

The Walking Dead season 12.

Unlike Dead City and Daryl Dixon, The Ones Who Live took the biggest mystery from The Walking Dead and resolved it almost completely. Across six episodes,

The Ones Who Live revealed everything that happened to Rick Grimes, exposed the CRM, and chronicled its downfall. Not only did the miniseries conclude the story of Rick's disappearance from season 9, it paid off his dramatic return alongside Michonne in

The Walking Dead's series finale.

Even so, it would be difficult to call The Ones Who Live "The Walking Dead season 12" if Rick and Michonne were the only two returnees. Fortunately, they were not. In addition to Pollyanna McIntosh as Jadis,

The Ones Who Live brought back Seth Gilliam's underrated Gabriel Stokes in a relatively prominent role, allowing the pair to resolve a love story that started somewhere around The Walking Dead

season 7.

Whereas Dead City and Daryl Dixon focus predominantly on new characters and storylines, only using the main show as a starting point, The Ones Who Live did the exact opposite, prioritizing the questions and characters that viewers of the main show would be most interested in.

Among the three most recent spinoffs, The Ones Who Live was also alone in maintaining The Walking Dead's usual tone. Daryl is swept up in epic European culture and

Dead City leans harder into noir-ish vibes, but The Ones Who Live simply felt like The Walking Dead.

Why The Walking Dead Season 12 Should Still Happen

The Ones Who Live may have partially filled the void left by The Walking Dead season 12, but the main show still demands a proper continuation. With only six episodes to play with, The Ones Who Live couldn't finish every narrative, and plenty of items on the to-do list can only be achieved with the full ensemble.

The Ones Who Live showed Rick returning to Judith and meeting RJ for the first time, but we also need his reunion with Daryl and reaction to seeing Negan again. The Walking Dead must still reveal the meaning behind Designation 2 and the mysterious PPP card connected to Heath. Bigger than that, Rick needs to tell his fellow survivors that humanity only has 14 years remaining on Earth before extinction beckons.

Morgan promised to return home at the end of Fear the Walking Dead, the origin of the virus was teased in World Beyond, and variant zombies have yet to be properly explained. The Walking Dead has much on its plate, and only season 12 has any hope of clearing up everything.

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