ChaosGaming: Neil Druckmann's 'Couple Of Projects' Comment Points To Four Possible Last Of Us Games

Neil Druckmann just said Naughty Dog is not done with The Last of Us, and that there are a couple of projects already in the works. Not one project, a couple. After years of him telling us not to assume The Last of Us Part 3 is happening, you cannot casually drop that sentence into an interview and expect everybody to remain calm. Something is happening with The Last of Us, and while Part 3 is obviously the project everybody wants this to be, I think that wording may actually be teasing more than one thing.

When I put it together with everything Druckmann and Naughty Dog have said over the last couple of years, I think there are four legitimate possibilities here. One is The Last of Us Part 3 itself. Another could bring back a story Naughty Dog already wrote and then abandoned. A third may be connected to a massive multiplayer game that was canceled after years of development. And the final possibility is exactly the kind of thing Sony loves to do whenever it remembers we haven't purchased The Last of Us recently enough.

What Neil Druckmann actually told the Washington Post

Speaking with Gene Park at the Washington Post, Druckmann explained that he and Naughty Dog are not creatively involved with the direction of HBO's third season. He then made it clear that Naughty Dog is still the steward of the franchise, saying that even if this is the end of the television adaptation, "we are not done with The Last of Us." He followed that by saying there are a couple of projects in the works and that he is excited to discuss them when the time is right.

That does not officially confirm Part 3. It does not even confirm both projects are video games. But it is a completely different tone from what we were hearing not too long ago, and that shift in language is what makes this worth digging into.

The tone has swung from "don't bet on it" to "a couple of projects"

In 2024, Druckmann revealed he had finally found a concept for another chapter. He said it was its own thing but still had a throughline connecting all three games, and that it felt like there was probably one more chapter left in the story. Then in 2025, he poured cold water all over that excitement, warning people not to bet on The Last of Us or more of it. Naughty Dog shifted its public attention toward Intergalactic and The Heretic Prophet, and Part 3 disappeared again.

Now he isn't saying maybe one day. He isn't saying he has an idea sitting in a drawer. He is saying a couple of projects are in the works. That's why I think The Last of Us Part 3 has to be the first possibility. Naughty Dog does not have to be in full production for that statement to be true. Intergalactic is still the studio's main publicly announced game and is clearly consuming a huge amount of its resources, but Naughty Dog has multiple teams, and Druckmann previously confirmed he was involved with another unannounced project alongside Intergalactic. That doesn't prove it's Part 3, but it gives the theory a lot more weight than random internet speculation.

Why Ellie and forgiveness would have to be at the center of Part 3

From a business perspective, Sony is never allowing this franchise to disappear. The Last of Us is now bigger than the games, with a massive HBO show, a global audience, and two characters who have become part of PlayStation's identity. The question isn't whether Sony wants Part 3, it's whether Naughty Dog found a story it believes deserves to exist, and Druckmann told us he found that concept.

I still believe Ellie has to remain the center of it. Part 2 didn't give her a happy ending, it left her alive, and those aren't the same thing. She lost Joel, she lost her partner, she lost the life they built together, she lost two fingers, and she nearly lost the last piece of herself while chasing Abby. But she finally made one decision that wasn't controlled by revenge. The first game was about love, Part 2 was about hatred, grief, and damage passed from one person to another, so the obvious third theme would be forgiveness, not Ellie forgiving Abby and inviting her over for sandwiches, but Ellie deciding whether she believes she deserves a life after everything she's done.

Maybe that brings her back to Jackson. I don't know. Maybe JJ becomes the person who forces Ellie to confront the same question Joel faced: how far will you go to protect somebody you love, and when does that love become selfish? If the Fireflies are rebuilding, Ellie's immunity immediately matters again, though I don't think that means repeating the hospital ending and putting her on another operating table. In fact, I think that would be the laziest direction possible. A stronger Firefly movement could instead connect Ellie, Abby, and the consequences of Joel's decision without undoing the ending of the first game. Joel saves Ellie because he cannot lose another daughter, Ellie destroys herself because she cannot let go of Joel, then Ellie finally decides what her life means when Joel is no longer making that decision for her. If Druckmann truly has a concept that creates a throughline across all three games, that feels like the structure.

The abandoned Tommy game could be hiding inside that same quote

Part 3 may not be the only game hidden inside Druckmann's comment. The second possibility is the Tommy story. Druckmann previously revealed that Naughty Dog had written a smaller story set after Part 2 starring Tommy. He clarified it was never Part 3 and was not designed as a full size sequel, but Naughty Dog had other priorities so the project was set aside. He also said he hoped it might eventually release in some form, and "a couple of projects" could be a convenient way to describe it now, something shorter in scope than a full sequel.

Tommy is physically damaged, his relationship with Maria appears broken, and he is almost completely consumed by the same revenge that destroyed Ellie. There's a story there. Whether it follows what happened after Seattle or fills in parts of Tommy and Joel's violent past, I don't know. Personally, I'd rather go backward and get Joel and Tommy during the twenty years between the outbreak and the first game, showing what Joel did that made Tommy walk away from him. We constantly hear that Joel was not a good person during those years, but the game leaves most of that to our imagination. A smaller Tommy led project could finally show us that period without resurrecting Joel or damaging his ending, and it would let Naughty Dog put Joel back into a game without pretending death had suddenly become optional in this universe.

Could the canceled Factions multiplayer game come back in a smaller form

The third possibility is something built from the remains of The Last of Us Online. Naughty Dog officially canceled that game in 2023 because supporting it for years would have required the entire studio to become a live service operation, and the studio chose to keep making single player narrative games instead. Naughty Dog said the tech and lessons from that project would carry into future work, and the canceled game's director more recently claimed it had been close to 80 percent done and performing well internally.

You don't spend that many years and that much money building locations, weapons, systems, animations, and multiplayer tech and then throw it all away. I do not believe for one second the giant live service version is coming back, since it was canceled for a reason and restarting the same project would be a problem. But parts of it could become a smaller co-op mode, and its technology could be used to release a modern version of Factions. Imagine Part 3 launching with a contained multiplayer mode instead of an endless live service, no ten year roadmap, no seasonal content treadmill, just an updated Factions with a handful of maps. That would be pretty cool.

Sony re-releasing The Last of Us again is the least exciting but most predictable option

Possibility number four is Sony preparing to sell us The Last of Us again. We already have the original game, the remastered original, the remake of the original, the sequel, the remastered sequel, and the PC versions. At this rate, Naughty Dog feels about six months away from announcing a Last of Us Part One remastered remake definitive director's cut for the PlayStation 6. A PS6 collection bundling both games together would surprise nobody, and that's before considering a smaller project like an animated production, a comic, or some expansion outside the main games.

Druckmann deliberately used the word projects, which gives him a lot of operating room. He did not say two games, so I'm not going to pretend he did.

My honest read on what Neil Druckmann's comment actually means

I believe one of those projects is The Last of Us Part 3. I don't think it's Naughty Dog's next release, because Intergalactic has to come first. But the language has changed too much for me to ignore, going from don't bet on it to a couple of projects in the works. That sounds like something moved beyond a concept into an actual plan. My second choice is the Tommy project, maybe expanded into a shorter standalone game since the story already exists. I'd be all right with that, or it could be both of them.

So I do think The Last of Us Part 3 is real. I think it's years away, I think Intergalactic arrives first, and I think Naughty Dog is going to avoid confirming anything for now. But yes, I think it's happening.

What do you think Neil Druckmann's couple of projects actually are?