Neil Druckmann Explains Why He Walked Away From The Last of Us Season 3
The visionary behind The Last of Us opens up about his decision to step back from the HBO hit, revealing it was all about finding balance and facing tough choices behind the scenes.
If you were wondering why Neil Druckmann stepped back from co-running HBO Max's The Last of Us after season 2, he just spelled it out. Short version: too many plates spinning, and one of them is a brand-new game he thinks could be huge.
Druckmann told Variety that he exited right as season 3 was gearing up. With the writers' room about to start, he looked at everything on his desk — more Last of Us stuff beyond the show, multiple games — and decided he needed to zoom out and run Naughty Dog full-time instead of splitting his brain with showrunning. That leaves his former co-showrunner Craig Mazin solely in charge of season 3.
"I felt like I could better serve all of my responsibilities if I stayed at a higher level."
The big swing pulling focus: Intergalactic: The Heretic Profit, Naughty Dog's next original IP with PlayStation. It is a third-person sci-fi adventure where you play as a space-faring bounty hunter. Gameplay is still under wraps, there is no release date yet, and the studio is clearly positioning it as the next flagship franchise.
If that all sounds like a lot to juggle with a prestige TV gig, it is. Druckmann said season 1 and season 2 already stretched him thin while he was also running the studio and writing/directing a game. He shouted out the Naughty Dog team for stepping up while he was off making the show, and he called out how deep he went on one chapter in particular: episode 206 (season 2, episode 6), which he prepped, wrote, and directed. When it came time to wrap the season 2 press tour and dive into season 3 in earnest, he decided that was the moment to recalibrate.
- Timing: He stepped away right as the season 3 writers' room was about to begin.
- Workload: He was balancing more Last of Us projects beyond the show and several games at Naughty Dog.
- Priority shift: Intergalactic: The Heretic Profit is consuming most of his time as the studio's next big PlayStation IP.
- Showrunning strain: He was heavily involved in seasons 1 and 2 — including writing and directing episode 206 — and was not sure he could repeat that level of commitment.
- Where things stand: Druckmann is back to focusing solely on running Naughty Dog. Craig Mazin is steering The Last of Us season 3, which Mazin says will be longer than season 2 and is expected to premiere in 2027.
Inside baseball note: this is the exact moment where a lot of creatives tap out of day-to-day showrunning — right before a writers' room ramp-up — because that is where the time sink really starts. Given everything on his plate, this move makes sense.