Oh no! What happened? How terrible! It turns out that Neil Druckmann's long-threatened Last Of Us Part 3 will probably never happen according to his most recent interview in Variety. Oh well, nothing of value was lost there.
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00:00Ah, Neil Druckmann. Truly, gaming's answer to Rian Johnson. A man who desperately wants
00:06to be seen as some visionary auteur, whose ambitions usually outstrip his abilities,
00:11responsible for hijacking beloved IPs and churning out some of the most divisive, pandering
00:16and damaging projects in the history of the medium, generously taking credit for other
00:20people's work, steadfastly refusing to accept any kind of criticism and promptly failing
00:26upwards to the next self-indulgent vanity project. His magnum opus was, without a doubt,
00:31the Last of Us franchise, a post-apocalyptic zombie survival misery simulator that consists
00:37of one pretty good game, albeit with slightly repetitive combat mechanics, one unnecessary
00:42prequel that nobody asked for and even fewer people bothered to play, and a sequel that
00:46may be one of the most divisive and vehemently hated games ever made. It did give us one
00:51of the greatest moments in gaming history though.
01:00Rest in peace fat girl, we barely knew you.
01:03Anyway, that was five years ago, and since the ending of part 2 left the possibility
01:07of a sequel wide open, the question everyone's been asking is, will we ever get a third game
01:12to round out the trilogy and bring Ellie's story to an end? Will Abby get back all the
01:17massive gains that she lost by the end of part 2? And will Ellie ever get to bump uglies
01:22with Dina again? I mean, fingering's gonna be a lot less satisfying from now on that's
01:26for sure.
01:27Ellie's game by the way.
01:32Old Neil's been pretty coy about doing a third game, dropping little hints here and there
01:36over the years but refusing to actually commit to doing it. Back in 2021, he claimed to have
01:41a story outlined for part 3 and admitted that there's been quite a bit of discussion about
01:46a sequel. He talked about it again in 2023, saying he was open to the idea, but only if
01:51the team could come up with a compelling story.
01:54In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again.
01:58Huh, that's weird, I thought you already had a compelling story Neil, you wrote it two
02:02years ago. Ah well, at the time they were busy fucking up the Last of Us multiplayer
02:06game that never saw the light of day so I can probably forgive him for getting a bit
02:09confused. I get confused sometimes.
02:14Then last year he changed his tune yet again, saying he'd struggled to come up with a good
02:18concept for the game previously but, recently that's changed so it does feel like there's
02:23probably one more chapter to this story.
02:26But then in an interview with Variety a couple of days ago where he was gushing about the
02:29show on HBO, which if I'm right is gonna have a very turbulent season 2, he was asked again
02:35about working on a third game and this time he said,
02:38I guess the only thing I would say is don't bet on there being more of The Last of Us.
02:42This could be it.
02:44Oh no, what, what happened? What ha- oh no, how terrible, that's just, that's just awful,
02:50how terrible, oh no!
02:52Now you can draw a few different conclusions from all of this. It could be that his creative
02:56focus has shifted more towards the TV show, which is higher profile and probably seems
03:01like a more worthwhile artistic endeavour to him, because let's be honest, he always
03:05seems like he's been more interested in movie making than game design.
03:09But on the gaming front, there is also Intergalactic The Heretic Prophet, a game with possibly
03:14the most convoluted and nonsensical titles since Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, to help
03:19satisfy his fetish for big ugly butch female protagonists.
03:23Put a chick in it, make her gay!
03:25Anita Sarkeesian would be so proud of you, Neil.
03:28Then again, there's probably a very relevant financial component to all of this. See, Last
03:32of Us Part II sold just over 50% of what the original did, once that initial hype for a
03:38sequel died down, people actually played it and word of mouth spread, they began to
03:42realise what a horrifying disaster it was and stayed away in their millions. At the
03:46end of the day, all those meaningless awards from increasingly irrelevant gaming media
03:51outlets are just no substitute for an extra 10 million units sold.
03:55Considering the way game development costs have ballooned to the point where they make
03:59Hollywood look like a model of financial efficiency, you'd have to question whether it would even
04:03be worth the time and money to develop a third game. Most of the core audience already
04:08checked out after 2, and I seriously doubt you'd be able to get them back now, which
04:12makes it a dicey commercial prospect at best. And the fact that it's now been 5 years and
04:17Neil Druckmann still seems kinda shaky on whether or not they actually have a worthwhile
04:21story to tell, makes me think that he's more inclined to quit while he's ahead and leave
04:24it at Part II.
04:26And you know what? I'm perfectly fine with that. As funny as it would be to see what
04:30kind of absurd identity politics he tries to awkwardly shove into a third game, the
04:35reality is that I just don't have any investment in the characters or world anymore. Joel's
04:40dead, his memory is utterly tarnished, Ellie's a completely different person from the first
04:44game and I don't care how many cringe-inducing love scenes you write, nothing is ever going
04:49to make me empathise with that big slab of beef gigantor.
04:52I mean, sorry, Abby. Not to worry though, I'm sure they'll be able to keep milking
04:57that first game for decades to come with even more HD remasters, remakes and reskins, endlessly
05:03rehashing the same exact story again and again and conveniently ignoring the simple and obvious
05:09truth. They got it right first time and they'll probably never equal it.
05:14Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Go away now.