The Last Of Us Part 3 'one more chapter' has us braced for the end

As I’m sure you’re aware, Naughty Dog is moving away from The Last Of Us and Uncharted to give us a fascinating new IP – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plans for The Last Us Part 3.

While Naughty Dog’s main focus right now is the stunning-looking Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, a new chapter in The Last Of Us saga is all but guaranteed. The bad news? It’s almost certainly going to be the final chapter.

During a recent documentary about the making of The Last Of Us Part 2, developer Neil Druckmann confirmed he has a plan for the third game, but that it will likely be the end of the story.

“The first game had such a clean concept of like, the unconditional love a parent feels for their child,” Druckmann explained.

“The second one, once we landed on this idea of the pursuit of justice at any cost, justice for the ones you love, we felt like, ‘there’s a clean concept here and there’s a throughline from the first game, about love.’ If we never get to do it again, this is a fine ending point. Last bite of the apple, the story’s done.”

He added: “The great thing about working at Naughty Dog is that we don’t have to. It’s always like, ‘we would love another Last Of Us, but if you guys feel you’re passionate about something else, we’ll support this other thing.’ Very privileged position to be in, I never take that for granted. I’ve been just thinking about it, ‘is there a concept there?’ And for now years, I haven’t been able to find that concept. But recently, that’s changed, and I don’t have a story, but I do have that concept that to me is as exciting as 1, as exciting as 2, is its own thing, and yet has this throughline for all three. So it does feel like there’s probably one more chapter to this story.”

As sad as we are to know the end is coming, we can safely bet it’ll be a long way off. Intergalactic doesn’t even have a release date yet, which suggests to us The Last Of Us Part 3 is little more than a glint in Druckmann’s eye at this stage.

Still, when the end does come, I know it’s going to be devastating.