The Last of Us Season 1 was pretty well received. Season 2 was not, to put it mildly. For whatever reason, the show struggled to adapt the second game as it had done the first. Many theories circulated; maybe it was the different structure, or the fact that it kept the same cast despite the timeskip.
After the show was out, series co-creator Neil Druckmann announced that he was stepping away from production going forward. There was no implication that his decision had anything to do with the show itself, but given that the new season was a whole lot less well received than the first, it was the conclusion that some came to.
Now, Druckmann's comments in a new interview are only adding to this theory, as he once again distances himself from the HBO show. He even goes as far as making sure everyone realises that Naughty Dog is the "steward" of The Last of Us, with the future of the series in the developer's hands.
"I wasn’t involved in shaping this season’s creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role in the direction of this season. So I can’t personally speak to how production is progressing," Druckmann tells The Washington Post. "It’s important for us to note that as the creator of the games, Naughty Dog is still the steward of this IP and even though this might be the end of this adaptation, we’re not done with The Last of Us."
He goes on to say that there are "a couple of projects in the works" that he can talk about "when the time is right". It doesn't sound like this has anything to do with HBO's ongoing adaptation.
Druckmann doesn't outright state that anything was wrong behind the scenes, but the fact that he is once again making it clear that neither he nor Naughty Dog as a studio has anything to do with this final season of The Last of Us has only fuelled speculation that there were some creative differences, perhaps between Druckmann and Mazin. The co-creator was clearly willing to have the show stray from the source material in some areas, as we saw in the first season, but perhaps Season 2 took it too far for his liking.
Many fans also accused the show of making its main characters, Ellie and Abby, much weaker than their video game counterparts. The arguments range from them being both physically weaker - particularly Abby - to also being worse-written characters overall, and less serious than they are in the source material.
The next season is poised to take us through the story from Abby's perspective. We'll have to wait and see if that's able to win everyone back, but it sounds like Druckmann and Naughty Dog are ready to move on.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/neil-druckmann-not-involved-with-the-last-of-us-season-3/
