The Creative Director behind some of Naughty Dog’s biggest games, including both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II, just randomly dropped a tease on his Instagram that is almost definitely referring to The Last of Us Part III.
Earlier this week, Naughty Dog and Sony celebrated their official The Last of Us Day, a yearly event in which they pump out a load of TLOU-shaped freebies and (usually) reveal what they have in the works.
Ever since they started the yearly event back in 2013, Naughty Dog has been pretty good about giving us something juicy. Even if they don’t have a huge announcement up their sleeves, we at least get some sort of cool freebie to mark the occasion.
This year, however, we got some downloadable pumpkin stencils. This is not a joke. I am being deadly serious.
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There was some other stuff in there, too, don't get me wrong. Joel and Ellie-themed Magic: The Gathering cards. The announcement that The Last of Us avatars would be coming to the Steam Points shop. A gnarly-looking Bloater statue from Dark Horse. Good stuff, sure– but nothing juicy.
Fans were noticeably let down by the whole thing, because many assumed that Naughty Dog were building up to announce The Last of Us Part III.
On one hand, that’s on them for building their expectations too high. On the other hand, Naughty Dog have remastered The Last of Us Part II and remade the first The Last of Us since the second game dropped in 2020, so it is a little odd that we’ve not heard anything about a third game in the franchise in the meantime.
However, it seems the juiciest part of The Last of Us Day wasn’t included in either Naughty Dog's or Sony’s official blog posts. Instead, it was on Neil Druckmann’s (who served as Creative Director and writer for both TLOU games) Instagram page.
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“Love how the script book turned out. Lots of fond memories while flipping through the pages,” Druckmann posted on his official Instagram.
“Happy TLoU day! Can’t wait to give y’all more TLoU updates when the time is right.”
Alright, so let’s be levelheaded for a second here, because “more TLoU updates” could mean anything. It’s vague enough that, perhaps, it’s not worth getting excited about, right?
Personally, however… I think Druckmann is smart enough to know that the internet is only going to interpret that one way. This is his way of saying that Naughty Dog is currently very busy working on their next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and that it’s simply too early to announce The Last of Us Part III.
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Maybe I’m just huffing on copium, but I think it’s telling that he chose to say this directly after the internet reacted poorly to what was featured in The Last of Us Day. He just doesn’t want to pull an Elder Scrolls VI and announce it years before we’ll be able to get our hands on it.
Topics: The Last Of Us, The Last Of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog, PlayStation, Sony