The Last of Us Producer Addresses Season 2 Timeline Order

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 which may spoil elements of The Last of Us Season 2.

The Last of Us is one of the most anticipated video game adaptations of the year, but Naughty Dog’s second game presents quite a challenge in adapting its non-traditional narrative for the screen. Many fans have speculated how the HBO series will tackle the dual timelines of the game, and now series producers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have shed some light on their process.

Season 2 of The Last of Us will pick up five years after the events of the first game, which saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) take immune teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic America in search of a cure. The second season will follow the plot of the second game, which sees Ellie travel to Seattle for vengeance after a tragedy strikes close to home. Adding to the upcoming season will be a wealth of new characters, including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, one of the main characters in The Last of Us Part 2. While trailers show the HBO series sticking closely to the plot of the second game, what has remained unclear is the order in which events will unfold throughout the show.

The Last of Us S2 Producers on Adapting the Game’s Timeline

The Last of Us Part 2 is a much bigger and more narratively complex game than the first, which is likely why it’s expected to be split across multiple seasons of television, rather than just nine episodes. For context, the game is divided more or less into two halves, following the perspectives of Ellie and Abby over the same three days in Seattle, with Ellie’s timeline occurring first, followed by Abby’s. “A big part of the theme of the second game is about perspective, how someone’s hero could be someone else’s villain and vice versa,” Druckmann explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

The producer stopped short of explaining in exactly what order the game’s timeline will play out in the show, opting to leave it a surprise for fans of the game. “I think that’s part of the fun for people familiar with the game to see how we approached that challenge in the show. I will just say that we gave it a lot of thought and tried different things. There are some deviations of where we place things,” he said. Co-showrunner Mazin added “We certainly are going to mess around with time the way it was in the source material, but as Neil said, we messed around in ways that we felt were appropriate for the show.”

Fans of the game had already clued onto the fact that The Last of Us Season 2 might be changing up the timeline. Scenes with characters like Isaac and the Seraphites hint at Abby’s side of the story being pulled forward, perhaps suggesting a chronologically ordered story. The Last of Us proved it wasn’t afraid to deviate from the source material in Season 1, with the storylines of minor characters like Bill and Frank taking up an episode, and the DLC chapter Left Behind being included chronologically. The series also spent time with completely new characters, like Melanie Lynskey’s faction leader, and it appears the series may do the same in Season 2 with the likes of Catherine O’Hara’s character, which could extend certain periods of the timeline.

All of this adds to the complexity of the timeline of The Last of Us Season 2 and, like in Season 1, it appears fans of the game should brace themselves for some changes. However, this may end up working in the series’ favor as adapting the timeline directly as it is in the game could result in certain main characters being omitted in different seasons, which runs the risk of alienating audiences.

Fans will find out how The Last of Us Season 2 adapts the game’s timeline in April on Max.