HBO's The Last of Us has carved out a healthy place for itself as one of the premiere video game adaptations of the modern television era, but all good things must come to an end. The show's second season started to adapt The Last of Us Part II, the second and (as of right now) final game in the series. The show has always been faithful to its source material, and in season 2 that meant that things left off on a wild cliffhanger right before we jumped back in time and switched perspectives from Bella Ramsey's vengeful heroine Ellie, to the WLF soldier who killed her surrogate father, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever).
If you've played the game, you know that the perspective shift to Abby happens a little less than halfway through the story. There's plenty more to cover, as we see what Abby and her friends were up to during the three days of Ellie's rampage through Seattle. Then, things come together for an extended epilogue sequence that's haunting, brutal, and powerful by turns.
There's enough material left that showrunner Craig Mazin has speculated about whether the show would need a fourth season to wrap it all up. But it sounds like that may not be the case, as HBO chief Casey Bloys has hinted that season 3 may be the end for the series.
When asked about whether he could confirm if The Last of Us season 3 will be the final season for HBO's hit post-apocalyptic drama, Bloys replied, "It certainly seems that way, but on decisions like that, we will defer to the showrunners. So you can ask them."
This leaves a little bit of wiggle room; if Maizin comes back and wants a season 4, I imagine HBO would give it to him. But Bloys saying that it "seems" like The Last of Us is going to end with season 3 is telling. The material left in the game could absolutely be covered in one more season — so long as it isn't a short one like season 2, which only ran for seven episodes. If HBO gives The Last of Us a full 10-episode run, I could see it devoting the first 7 or 8 episodes to Abby's story in Seattle, with the final batch serving as a thrilling conclusion to wrap it all up with the epilogue material.
Considering that The Last of Us is slated to start filming on season 3 in the next couple of months, I imagine it won't be long before we start hearing more about what's in store. In the meantime, seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on HBO Max to tide us over until the show's return, most likely sometime in 2027.