‘The Last of Us’ season 3 loses game creator Neil Druckmann as co-showrunner

The Last of Us season 2 was the last of Neil Druckmann.

The co-creator of the original video games announced on Wednesday that he’s leaving his post as co-showrunner of the HBO series ahead of season 3. He will remain attached to the show as a co-creator and executive producer, Entertainment Weekly has learned. However, Druckmann will no longer write or direct season 3.

Instead, he will focus his attention on Naughty Dog, the gaming studio he runs.

Craig Mazin, his partner in crime for the first two seasons, including its Emmy-winning freshman run, will now serve as the sole showrunner.

“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO,” Druckmann said in a statement. “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, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative.”

The statement 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. I’m deeply thankful for the thoughtful approach and dedication the talented cast and crew took to adapting The Last of Us Part I and the continued adaptation of The Last of Us Part II. I look forward to HBO and PlayStation Productions continuing Ellie and Abby’s story next season.”

UPDATE: Haley Gross, a writer who helped shape the story of the Part II video game and returned to work on season 2 of the show, also announced on Instagram that she wouldn’t return for season 3 in order “to make space for what comes next.”

“I have some truly rad projects ahead that I can’t wait to share,” she said, “but for now, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who brought Ellie and Joel’s world to life with such care.”

In the comments of her Instagram post, Druckmann wrote, “The game and the show owe much of their success to you. Keep slaying!”

Mazin released his own statement on the matter. “It’s been a creative dream to work with Neil and bring an adaptation of his brilliant work to life on HBO,” he said. “I couldn’t have asked for a more generous creative partner. As a true fan of Naughty Dog and Neil’s work in video games, I’m beyond excited to play his next game. While he focuses on that, I’ll continue to work with our brilliant cast and crew to deliver the show our audience has come to expect. We are so grateful to Neil and Halley Gross for entrusting the incredible story of The Last of Us Part II to us, and we’re just as grateful to the millions of people around the world who tune in.”

Season 2 of The Last of Us began adapting the events of The Last of Us Part II, Druckmann and Naughty Dog’s 2020 video game. [Spoiler alert] The story picked up five years after the events of season 1, when Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her squadron of ex-Fireflies hunt down and kill Joel (Pedro Pascal) for gunning down her father, the doctor who tried to engineer a vaccine to the infected plague in the season 1 finale.

The story then became all about Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as she set out from Jackson to hunt down all those responsible for Joel’s death. Taking its cue from the game, season 3 will now focus on Dever’s Abby as the show shifts to that character’s perspective.

“There is another side to this story that we have yet to really delve into,” Mazin previously teased during a virtual press conference tied to the season 1 finale. “There’s no question that Abby is the hero of her story. Kaitlyn Dever is the hero of a story, always. If you have a Kaitlyn Dever, you use a Kaitlyn Dever. So I think where we go next, all I can say is it will always be centering somebody, whether it’s Ellie and Dina, or whether it’s Abby and Abby’s relationship with Owen or new relationships. If you played the game, you probably know what I’m talking about. But if you want to boil it down, everything is under the cloud or sunlight of Joel, what Joel did to Abby, and what Joel did for Ellie. That will never change.”

Season 2 also faced heavy criticism from the larger fan base, due to the major story departures and remixing from the source material. During a Variety panel in June, Mazin explained how the sophomore go came with “so many expectations and we did learn a lot of lessons.”

“And the problem with learning lessons is then you have to be accountable to those lessons,” he continued. “And you’re not allowed to make those mistakes anymore, which is tragic. You do feel pressure to somehow fulfill what people want but also surprise them. You’re now a topic of discussion, whereas before you were just new and surprising. I mean, the bar for video game adaptations was pretty low. We had that going for us in season 1 — now we kind of f—ed ourselves.”

The Ankler was the first to break the news of Druckmann’s departure.