Naughty Dog Chief Neil Druckmann
Blog Andrew Joseph 02 Jul , 2025 0
Naughty Dog Head Neil Druckmann announced that he would not be creatively involved in HBO's Last Us Season 3, but instead chose to focus entirely on Gotheratic Intergalactic's game development: Heresy Prophet.
– Naughty Dog (@naughty_dog) July 2, 2025
In a statement posted to Naughty Dog's social channels, Druckman said:
“I've made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. With work completed on Season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on Season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibility as Studio Head and Head of Creative.
“Co-creating the show has been a career highlight. It’s an honor to work with Craig Mazin, direct production, direct and writing. I’m so grateful for the thoughtful approach and dedication taken by the talented actors and crew to fit the first part of the first part, and the continued adaptation of the first part of our last part.”
Other reports from Anker It was revealed that Showrunner Craig Mazin will be writing in Season 3 after working with Druckmann in the first two seasons.
Druckmann's return to game development is Naughty Dog's Next Project, Balance: The Pagan Prophetat the game awards in December 2024. While this seems to be Druckmann's main focus at the moment, it's not the studio's only project. Druckmann has confirmed Another unnotified game in the internal work He is “more producer roles” and can “guid and watch another team, give feedback and be like an executive in the room.”
Meanwhile, HBO is our final adaptation, which has been a huge success. HBO said Season 2 saw the “influx” of audiences, which brought the series global audience global audience More than 90 million since the end of Season 1Although it added that the low ratings for the Season 2 finale was due to Memorial Day weekend release time.
Although Season 3 has been confirmed to be in progress, this may not be the end. Ma Jin said he Think Season 4 is essentialand The composer of the series recently said on the podcast There is no doubt that “at least two seasons are left.” It is not clear whether Druckmann will return with the ability to create in Season 4.
us Give the last season of the United States 9/10calling it “an amazing adaptation that should excite newbie and enrich those who are already familiar with Joel and Ellie's journey.” Season 2's 7/10 is slightly lower“Still good, but it's also a struggled sequel, because it's only half the story.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].