Naughty Dog confirms The Last of Us 3

It's been over a year since someone claimed Naughty Dog already had started working on The Last of Us: Part III, so it wasn't surprising when the same person got even more attention after stating that the project already was so far into production that major motion-capture sessions had started last summer. Well, that's completely false.

Because several developers at Naughty Dog weren't kidding when they said the documentary Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II would make headlines leading up to its premiere a few hours ago. They didn't just mean the studio promising to basically get rid of its crunch culture entirely, Laura Bailey sharing even more information about her death threats or that The Last of Us: Part II started out as an open world game inspired by Bloodborne. The one thing they definitely knew would get the most attention was the final two minutes of the documentary, as it ends with Neil Druckmann basically confirming The Last of Us: Part III will happen. He all but outright denies the aforementioned rumours about the game being far into development, however, because we're told he only has a concept so far and an idea of how the three games will tie together. Here is his entire statement:

"I did some other interview where someone asked me about The Last of Us and would there be any more stories or something. And I mentioned we have written a story that takes place after The Last of Us 2 that stars Tommy, and I hope one day we get to make it. The headlines across the industry were like "Naughty Dog has outlined The Last of Us: Part III", and that's actually wrong. It was always a small story. It was never like a full title.

At the time we had higher priorities at Naughty Dog: to fix our pipeline, to fix work-life balance issues. Just based on where we were, I didn't want to prioritise this story, so that story was shelved. And I still believe one day it will see the light of day. I don't know if it'll be a game or a show, TBD.

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

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 just been 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. I don't have a story, but I do have that concept that to me is as exciting as 1, as exciting as 2. It 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."

Naughty Dog is already working on at least two other projects, so Druckmann makes it sound like The Last of Us: Part III might be a PlayStation 6 game, but time will tell. Either way, I highly recommend watching the documentary below, as it gives an interesting insight into The Last of Us: Part II's development, the leak, crunch culture and more.