'The Last of Us' Season 2 gets major update amid SAG-AFTRA strike

HBO has announced a major update regarding the fate of Season 2 of The Last of Us.

As per the streamer’s exec Casey Bloys, filming for the video game adaptation could begin as late as early 2024, delaying its release to 2025.

The unprecedented delay comes in the wake of WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, both of which began earlier this year.

“We’ve outlined all of Season 2 and we’re ready to go as soon as the strike ends,” Creator Neil Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly.

“We were able to map out all of Season 2,” shared showrunner Craig Mazin. “And I also wrote and submitted the script for the first episode and sent it in [to HBO] around 10:30 or 10:40 p.m. right before the midnight the [WGA] strike began. I think it’s becoming essentially a near certainty that we won’t be able to start [filming] when we were hoping to start, which is upsetting. We are all raring to go.”

Though the writers’ strike was eventually called off in September, the actors are still on a strike as a result of lack of favorable deal between the union and the studios.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world after a deadly virus has crippled the world, The Last of Us centers on a man named Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, who is tasked with smuggling a young girl Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, across the United States to fix up a cure for the disease.

Ramsey previously told in an interview that the first season took almost 10 months to film, leading to assumption that it’d take around the same time for the upcoming season.