Neil Druckmann is drucking out of TV.
Naughty Dog’s Twitter account shared this statement that Druckmann provided to the studio, to make public:
I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. With work completed on Season 2, and before any meaningful work starts on Season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative.
Druckmann went on to confirm that there would be two more seasons of the show, to be produced by Craig Mazin. This caps an unexpected, but frustrating turnaround for HBO’s The Last Of Us show, which went from being a critical and commercial success in Season One, to becoming bait for outrage farmers on YouTube on Season Two. The finale for Season 2 very visibly saw a huge nosedive in viewers, although HBO claims that they aren’t too worried about it.
While there will of course be disagreement on what HBO and Naughty Dog got wrong, given that The Last Of Us Part 2, which it was based on, was also controversial and contentious among fans. But we think it’s safe to state that one of, if not the biggest issues that this season had was that it changed Ellie’s characterization drastically, not only separating it from her video game version, but also from the Ellie that viewers watched grow in Season One of the HBO show. That’s why fans were not happy when Craig Mazin actually verbalized the very issue that fans had with Season Two. In his words:
Abby, seemingly is not like Ellie, in that Abby is incredibly competent.
As for Druckmann, he was talking about how much work he was taking on last May, a week before the season finale aired. He was showing up on the HBO tapings, while also running back to Naughty Dog to work as a producer. He is helping guide the team in charge of producing Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and there is another unannounced game currently in active development.
So if you’re still a fan of the Druckmann, there is still something to look forward to in games that he is helping make. We don’t know if this means he will be stepping in to be directly involved in these games, but based on that interview, he would be content to have Naughty Dog’s staff who worked under him step up to bring their own visions to life.
