When The Last of Us was released on HBO, it was a surprise hit. Most often, horrible adaptations are released, which act as a hollow shell of what the source material offers. Fortunately, that has started to change for the video game industry. We’re seeing some truly incredible releases, such as The Last of Us, and fans will soon get to sit in on the second season.
Hyping up the release of the new season, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann and showrunner Craig Mazin recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly. During their conversation, the topic of having some slight changes came up for the upcoming season. There were some slight changes and expansions from the first season. That season covered all of The Last of Us. However, this next season is set to chart out the narrative for Part 2, one behemoth of a game.
During the conversation, Neil Druckmann noted deviations from where they placed things. So, if you’re looking for a direct copy of the game for this upcoming season, that won’t happen. Unfortunately, they stopped short of what changes we could expect for the upcoming season.
I don’t even know if it’s worth mentioning where we landed because 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. – Neil Druckmann
But there is easily one change that fans have spotted right away during the production of season two. For fans of the games, you know that the character Abby is very muscled. She’s a dominating force to reckon with, but that’s not who we have for this upcoming season. Instead, Kaitlyn Dever was cast for the role of Abby, who is similar in size to Ellie.
Again, Neil Druckmann commented on this change-up. According to Neil, what was important for the production was finding someone who had the vibe of Abby rather than getting to the details of whether their body looked similar.
We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters…. We don’t value as much, ‘Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?’ Whatever it is. It’s not nowhere on the priority list, but it’s below a bunch of other things that we consider. – Neil Druckmann
We’ll have to wait and see if this change-up pays off for the upcoming season. Currently, the upcoming season is set to release in April of this year. But we know this upcoming season won’t cover everything from The Last of Us Part 2. That game is far too long for production to fit in a single season.
