Naughty Dog Had Plans to Make a Prequel to The Last of Us

Thanks to the huge success of HBO TV series adaptation, 2013 action-adventure game The Last of Us from developer Naughty Dog and publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment saw a boost in physical sales of over 230% at UK boxed chart.

TLoU series fans are currently waiting for an anticipated reveal of standalone multiplayer game later this June. Whereas many would love to see Naughty Dog make The Last of Us Part III, they once considered making prequel to first game.

While talking to Kinda Funny Spoilercast lately, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann says that they planned for another studio to work on a prequel game for The Last of Us at one point and it was later repurposed for TLoU TV series.

Druckmann was referring to ninth episode of The Last of Us TV show focusing on Ellie's mother, Anna. Played by Ashley Johnson, original motion capture and voice artist for Ellie in The Last of Us titles, Anna had a much larger role in show.

Anna's story was only referred to but never really explored in-game, who plays a more fleshed-out character in HBO show. She is given a backstory that was planned to be adapted by another studio into a full game but it didn't really work.

He further added that Kinda Funny's Greg Miller introduced him to a studio and they started to talk before it fell apart. Other developer like Bend Studio has worked on Naughty Dog games in past such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss spin-off.

Since its 2013 debut on PlayStation 3 consoles, The Last of Us franchise has sold over 37 million copies worldwide. Following its recent TV premiere on HBO Max streaming platform, it had 8.2 million viewers and broke all previous records.

Naughty Dog is already working on their next project and The Last of Us TV show gets renewed for Season 2 but may expand even more. Although fans really want Last of Us Part III, dev team may not revive TLoU or Uncharted series soon.