In recent years, there hasn’t much to write home about game franchise’s annual fan celebration day like with Mass Effect’s N7 and that’s true for The Last of Us Day, a weird celebration of when the in-universe outbreak happened in the first hour of the 2013 PS3 game. This year, Naughty Dog studio head and The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann in a blog post on Naughty Dog’s website revealed that the team is working on two new projects that look to “expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II.”
“Since Grounded II, we’ve talked about the possibility of telling more stories in the world of The Last of Us. We have a couple of very exciting new projects in very early stages – so we can’t say much about them at this point. I will tell you that both projects will expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II. The world of The Last of Us means a great deal to us, and we wouldn’t return to it unless we had something meaningful to say. We believe these stories are worth telling,” Druckmann said in a Naughty Dog blog post.
The Last of Us Day was on September 26th, this Saturday, but expanded the celebration over the weekend to yesterday, like its civic holiday or something. It’s not really news to say a developer is working on other games on the back burner, but coming out saying more is coming from The Last of Us is at least a little significant.
Oddly, is the wording of “project” as Druckmann doesn’t outright confirm if we are getting new game from Naughty Dog or something else that the studio could be collaborating with other creators like in the realm of TV or even a movie; could even be a comic book, graphic novel, or just a straight up book that would do the job of “expanding” The Last of Us canon.
Outside of The Last of Us, Drunkmann acknowledges that the studio has been pretty quiet as the team has been “heads down on what is shaping up to be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious game yet” that being its upcoming game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. That will change next year as Drunkmann has confirmed that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will be getting a full re-reveal in 2027 with a proper look at Jordan’s wild sci-fi adventure on PS5.
