THE LAST OF US Season 3 Won’t Repeat GAME OF THRONES’ Biggest Mistake
The Last of Us may be getting ready to call it quits after Season 3, and that could be exactly what the HBO series needs.
The third season is expected to arrive in 2027, and while HBO hasn’t officially stamped it as the end of the road, the current plan appears to be wrapping up the story rather than pushing the series beyond the material that made it work in the first place.
Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, recently confirmed the 2027 window and addressed whether Season 3 will be the final season, saying: “I think [showrunner] Craig [Mazin] has planned it as the final season.”
If that plan sticks, it could help The Last of Us avoid one of the biggest problems that hit Game of Thrones during its final years.
Both shows are adaptations, but Game of Thrones eventually ran into a problem that The Last of Us can still avoid: it ran past its completed source material.
The first four seasons of Game of Thrones had George R.R. Martin’s published novels to draw from. Once the series caught up with the books, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss had to rely more heavily on Martin’s outlines while taking the story toward its conclusion.
By Season 7, Martin said he was no longer involved in the show’s creative decisions. Benioff and Weiss ultimately brought Game of Thrones to an end with a shortened eighth season, and the response wasn’t pretty.
The final episodes, particularly the series finale, received harsh reviews from critics and fans who felt the story rushed toward its conclusion. They pretty much shit the bed.
It’s impossible to know how those seasons would have turned out if Martin’s remaining novels had been available, but having finished books to adapt certainly would have given the series a more complete roadmap.
The Last of Us could soon face its own version of that problem. Craig Mazin has two Naughty Dog games providing the foundation for the HBO adaptation. Season 3 will continue adapting the second half of The Last of Us Part II, meaning the show is getting close to exhausting the existing game storyline.
Going beyond that point would require Mazin and the writers to start creating substantial new material that doesn’t currently exist in the games.
Could Mazin pull it off? Sure. He’s an accomplished writer and has already shown that he can expand and alter elements of the games for television without simply recreating them scene for scene. Still, there’s a big difference between expanding existing material and continuing the entire story without another game to follow.
There’s another important change heading into Season 3 as well. Neil Druckmann, the Naughty Dog creative who helped create The Last of Us, is no longer involved in the HBO series’ creative decisions.
Druckmann’s knowledge of the games paired with Mazin’s television experience played an important role in shaping the adaptation. Season 3 now leaves Mazin steering the series without that same creative partnership.
That doesn’t mean the third season is in trouble. Mazin knows this world, these characters, and how to translate the games into television. The bigger gamble would be continuing after the available story has been exhausted simply because HBO has a successful show on its hands.
Television has plenty of examples proving that more seasons don’t automatically make a better series. Sometimes the smartest move is knowing when the story is finished.
If The Last of Us Season 3 can complete its adaptation of The Last of Us Part II and give the characters a satisfying conclusion, ending there makes plenty of sense. There’s little reason to create an unnecessary Game of Thrones-style source material problem when HBO has the chance to avoid it altogether.