Will There Be a Last of Us Part 3?

Curious about whether or not there will be another sequel for The Last of Us Part II? Find out if Naughty Dog will make a Last of Us 3, Neil Druckmann's statement about it, as well as potential storylines for the next game in the series will be about.

Will There Be a Last of Us Part 3?

Currently Unconfirmed

Currently, it is not yet confirmed whether Naughty Dog will make a second sequel, The Last of Us Part III. The game's ending can be seen as an open-ended ending, which could be a factor in believing there might be another sequel. Another factor is that the Vice President of Naughty Dog, Neil Druckmann, has given his statement about The Last of Us Part III during a recent interview with IndieWire. Check out below to see what Neil Druckmann said during this interview.

Neil Druckmann's Statement on The Last Of Us Part III

"I’ll be a little vague and cagey as you can expect, but I think the test for whether or not to make a “Part III” would have to be a similar test to what we did with “Part II.” With the first game there were no expectations and it was like we could do anything. But now that we’ve established certain characters and themes and processes, it felt like to justify making a “Part II” we had to do something not that fans would just be comfortable with, but do something that would match the emotional core we found in the first game. And without that, there’d be no reason to do a “Part III.”

Finding it with the sequel was much harder than it was with the first game, and going forward it would be exponentially harder to justify going back to that world and finding a way to vary things up. There’s already so many things you’ve seen about the backstory, about how the outbreak happens, so we’d really have to figure out how to create a new experience that matches the emotional impact of these stories and I don’t know what that is. Currently."

What Will Last of Us 3 Be About?

Note: The following section is purely speculation, since nothing has been officially stated by Naughty Dog about the planned release of a Part 3. We are simply listing a few ideas of what a Last of Us Part 3 might be about if one were to be announced. If you have your own opinions, or ideas for a sequel, be sure and let us know in the comments!

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Also note that the following section could contain potential spoilers! Be sure and read after completing TLoU2.

Prequel to The Last of Us

The most obvious choice for a Part 3 story would be a prequel to the original TLoU, following the Metal Gear Solid 3 method of giving a deeper look into the characters of both games via a past story. This could give us a look into how Joel spent the first 20 years after the outbreak, filling out details on how he met characters like Tess or Bill, showing his original falling out with Tommy, all while coping with the loss of his daughter Sarah.

With how popular Joel is as a character, if another Last of Us game were announced, we would place our money on a young-Joel focused storyline.

Curing the Infection

A huge part of the storyline for both games revolves around Ellie being immune to the infection that has taken over the world. Not only that, but her immunity is revealed to be different from the other survivors who have shown signs of immunity, to the point where she could be used to create a vaccine for the virus. However, all of that was thrown out of the window when the surgeons who were going to help create said vaccine were killed by Joel.

Part 3 could have us playing Ellie once again, this time on a quest to find anyone capable of performing the procedures necessary to create a vaccine, making things right once and for all. This could set her on a path where she goes to find the remaining Fireflies, and once again crosses paths with Abby, several years after their conflict. Who knows, maybe they could even put their violent history behind them and team up at some point.

Lev's Story

Lev is a boy who escapes from the Seraphites and joins forces with Abby. At the end of Part 2, we see him and Abby sail off in a boat to find the remaining Fireflies. Since he is still a boy with a big life ahead of him, and a rocky past behind him, we could see him go on another quest alongside Abby, much like Joel and Ellie in Part 1. This could start with them trying to locate the Fireflies, but maybe evolve into a quest with some completely different purpose.

The Last of Us Gaiden

The Last of Us 1 and 2 focus on Joel and Ellie's story, which takes them through multiple locations, such as Boston, Jackson, Seattle, and many others. Along the way, we get to see countless characters, and learn how they have survived through the outbreak that has wiped out 60% of the world's population.

However, what we see is still quite limited, when you consider that there must be hundreds of other settlements in various parts of the world. With Joel and Ellie's story more or less resolved, this could be a great opportunity to create a completely new setting and characters in a foreign country, to see how they have endured the years of hardship, and what type of stories have been made there.

In addition to the new characters and storylines we would learn, it might be a good place to introduce new infected, since maybe the infection is not quite the same in other countries as it is in the US. This setting also wouldn't be limited to taking place in the same year as Part 1 / 2, and could take place potentially any time after the beginning of the outbreak.

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