The co-president of Naughty Dog and co-creator of The Last Of Us has confirmed that he has a concept for the third installment that is just as exciting as the first two.

A documentary called Grounded II: Making The Last Of Us Part II recently aired. It was, of course, about how Naughty Dog created the second part of the franchise, and it’s no coincidence that the future of the series was one of the topics discussed. Druckmann explained how, after a long time, the idea of a possible sequel was born (which is bound to happen, as Sony’s blockbuster strategy may have already led to a new The Last Of Us being ordered).

“I did another interview where someone asked me about The Last of Us and if there would be more stories or something. I mentioned that we have written a story that takes place after Last of Us II, where Tommy is the main character. I hope one day we get to do that. The headlines across the industry have been like “Naughty Dog has outlined The Last of Us Part III” and that’s actually wrong. It was always a little story, it was never a full title. At the time, we had higher priorities at Naughty Dog to fix our pipeline, to fix work-life balance issues. Just based on where we were, I didn’t want to prioritize that story, so that story was shelved. I still believe it will see the light of day one day. I don’t know if it’ll be a game or a show… yet to be decided.

The first game had such a clean concept of the unconditional love that a parent has for their child. The second one, when we landed on this idea of pursuing justice at all costs, justice for the ones you love, it felt like there was a clean concept here and there was a through-line from the first game about love. If we never get to do it again, this is a nice ending point. The last bite of the apple, the story is done. The great thing about working at Naughty Dog is that we don’t have to. It’s always like, we’d love to do another Last of Us, but if you guys are passionate about something else, we’ll support that other thing.

It is a very privileged position to be in. I never take it for granted. I thought, “Is there a concept there?” And for years I haven’t been able to find that concept, but recently that’s changed. I don’t have a story, but I have this concept that to me is as exciting as [The Last Of Us Part] I and II, is its own thing, but has this through-line for all three. So it feels like there’s probably another chapter to this story,” Druckmann said.

So when will Sony announce it? Because there is no such thing as not making it.

Source: Gematsu