The Last Of Us surprise announcement roasted by fans

The Last of Us fans aren’t feeling too thrilled about the series' potential future, following an official statement from Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann.

As revealed on the official Naughty Dog Twitter account, Neil Druckmann will no longer be involved in the third season of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation.

“I've made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO”, reads Druckmann’s 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..."

Naturally, the folks over on the r/ThelastofusHBOseries subreddit aren’t too happy to hear that the creative director and writer of the first two games will no longer be involved in the project.

“He helped write and he directed some of the best episodes in the first two seasons,” commented user AvengingHero2012.

“Plus, who knows how much he was helping the writing in episodes he wasn’t credited on. To say that I’m concerned is a massive understatement.”

“Not trying to be dramatic, but this feels like confirmation of what a lot of us already sensed”, replied user adnowwhat.

“Neil and Haley were the creative heartbeat behind The Last of Us Part II — love it or hate it, that game had vision. It was bold, risky, emotionally brutal, and above all else, deeply personal. Now they’re out of the writing room for the HBO show, and it’s hard not to connect the dots… Now, with Neil and Haley stepping back, it kind of feels like they’re washing their hands of it.”

Now, personally, I’m in two minds about this whole thing.

Obviously the second season of The Last of Us wasn’t quite as warmly received as the first, and many are theorising that this is the reason behind Druckmann’s departure from the project.

That does kind of make sense, but I think Druckmann’s official explanation (being that he’s too busy with his work at Naughty Dog) also makes a lot of sense.

Either way, I do think the quality of the third season will suffer without his involvement. Here’s hoping showrunner Craig Mazin can really pull something out of the bag.