A big announcement from The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann has fans worried about the future of the franchise.
Druckmann co-ran HBO's The Last of Us television show with fellow showrunner Craig Mazin for the first two seasons, with his The Last of Us Part 2 co-writer Halley Gross joining the writers’ room for Season 2 along with Bo Shim.
Earlier this week, both Druckmann and Gross announced they had made a decision to step away from creative involvement in the show.
Druckmann will focus on his role as Naughty Dog’s Studio Head, as well as ensuring work on the upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is completed smoothly. Meanwhile, Gross has disclosed she is making “space for what comes next”, which includes an acting role in Intergalactic.
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With the announcement that both have stepped away from the series, that leaves Mazin in creative control of the show.
This has been seen as controversial by some online users, who feel the best writing in The Last of Us, particularly its second season, has come from Druckmann and Gross’ contributions.
“The next season of the show is definitely going to be worse than the last,” wrote one fan on the PS5 Reddit page. “I feel like Mazin does not understand the version of Ellie from the second game.”
“Before people start spinning this as a bad thing, it sounds to me like he would rather focus on creating new stories and experiences rather than retelling the same one for a whole decade,” another fan wrote.
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Over on The Last of Us Reddit page, fans are worried about the future of the franchise.
“You of course have to be cautious with speculation,” wrote one commenter. “But that it isn’t just Neil who left, but Halley too, definitely lends credence to the idea that this split happened because of creative differences.”
“There's no way in hell Neil is anything other than disappointed with Season 2,” another fan wrote. “Not at all surprising to see him bail on this. I'm also pretty confident S3 viewership will be trash and S4 won't even happen.”
Considering Druckmann has gone on record to say that there might not be a third game, this leaves a sour taste in the mouth of fans who were hoping to see what the future holds.
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Hopefully Season 3 isn’t as bad as fans might be projecting. Nobody wants bad art, nor does anyone want to create bad art.
But with the third season likely still a couple of years away, we won’t know for definite until then.
Topics: The Last Of Us, The Last Of Us Part 2, PlayStation