The Last of Us Part III Has a Story, But the Game is not in Development

Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann revealed to the Script Apart podcast that the studio has written a story outline for The Last of Us: Part III. Druckmann affirms that the studio is not working on The Last of Us: Part III but he hopes that “one day can see the light of day”.

“I don’t know how much I want to reveal,” Druckmann said. “[Co-writer Halley Gross] and I did write an outline for a story, that we’re not making – but I hope one day can see the light of day – that explores a little bit what happens after this game. We’ll see.”

Druckmann also explains that The Last of Us Part III created “quite a bit” of discussion internally, the project would have to stick with “some structural and thematic themes” established by the first two games in the series, were it to be produced.

“We’ve now had two games that I feel speak to something universal as well as telling a very personal story for these characters,” Druckmann said. “With one game, there’s no pattern of what a franchise is. With two games, now there’s starting to be a pattern – now I feel like there are some structural and thematic themes you would have to stick to if you were making a third game.”

It seems that eventually The Last of Us: Part III will be given the green light, however, Naughty Dog sounds keen to take its time working things out before announcing the project.

“After we finish one of our big titles, we take a long time to explore different ideas, whether it’s going to be Last of Us III, whether it’s something new, whether there’s some old franchise we want to go back to,” Druckmann said. “I like to fully explore all of those, and then look at, okay, we have all of these ideas in front of us. As a studio, what do we want to commit to? Because it’s a huge commitment – monetary, time, passion, talent, so you think about all the opportunity costs that come with that.”

Earlier this month it was reported that Naughty Dog is producing a The Last of Us Remake with a team of Sony Bend developers helping the studio with the multiplayer game based on The Last of Us Part II.

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