The Last of Us Prequel Game Was Almost In The Works

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us season one. 

There is plenty of hype and excitement built up around The Last of Us again. The hit video game franchise got a new resurgence of followers thanks to the immensely popular HBO live-action adaptation series. Because a new flood of players is finding their way to this franchise’s video games, further details are reaching the public. Neil Druckmann, the co-creator of The Last of Us, recently spoke on the Kinda Funny Podcast. During this conversation, the topic of The Last of Us video game projects came up. Surprisingly enough, another studio almost went forward with a game project based on the IP.

During the podcast, Neil Druckmann revealed that a story was considered for development that never made it into production. The Naughty Dog studio was in talks with another development team about a prequel game. This would offer a narrative centered around Ellie’s mother and likely what happened to her after Ellie was born. While there were talks about proceeding with this project, it never panned out and ultimately got scrapped.

Fortunately, this is one area that was picked up and used for HBO’s The Last of Us live-adaptation series. If you recall, the finale episode of The Last of Us offered a brief flashback to Ellie’s mother. For fans of the video game franchise, the actress portraying Ellie’s mother is Ashely Johnson, who portrayed Ellie in the video game series. It’s a brief flashback that shows Ellie’s mother giving birth but being bitten by an infected. Ellie is passed to Marlene, while Ellie is killed before she becomes a mindless infected herself. 

While that prequel never came to fruition, fans are hopeful that Naughty Dog would go back to the IP and deliver another mainline installment. We know that a team is already working on a multiplayer-focused game set within the same universe. Likewise, Neil Druckmann understands that fans want The Last of Us Part III, but at the moment, we don’t have any official word that a new mainline installment is in the works. At any rate, those of you who have enjoyed the HBO series and are looking to tie yourself over until the second season comes out can go back and enjoy the video game releases. In fact, later this month, The Last of Us Part I is coming to the PC platform.