What an absolute maverick of a show The Last of Us turned out to be; in nine swift moves, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have shoved video game adaptations into the realm of award season contenders, and with the second season having been on the horizon about as long as the show has existed, that campaign isn’t over yet.
To be quite honest, we’d be more than happy if the aforementioned showrunners gave us more of the same in their efforts to adapt The Last of Us Part II, but apparently that’s just not the Druckmann/Mazin way. Indeed, the duo seems all in on one-upping themselves in a big way with season two.
In an interview with Deadline, the EPs opened up about their creative process for season 2, their hopes for it, and how their experience working on the first season will go a long way in the next run. Druckmann in particular made note of the self-imposed pressure that comes with delivering, citing how important the franchise is to so many people, not least of himself given that he co-masterminded the original video game in the first place.
“There was a lot of self-imposed pressure because The Last of Us means so much to me, and the rest of the developers at Naughty Dog that made the game and want to make sure we got [the show] right, and I feel like we did. So, for us now, it’s important to replicate the process, how Craig and I work, and how we’re going to put the show together. There’s some learnings and things that I feel we can make it even better going into season two, but the pressure is usually self-imposed more from the outside, so I want to make sure we end up with something that, again, we’re proud of and does justice to the game that came before it.”
Mazin chimed in soon after, noting how the duo’s creative process will remain unchanged going into the the second season, but didn’t discount the learning experience that came with making the first, which sounds to be a key tool in their bar-raising endeavors.
“We adapted where we wanted to adapt, how we wanted to adapt. We stayed close to the material. Sometimes we drifted away from the material, but that process worked great. So, we’re not changing that process at all. We are going to [continue to] push ourselves in all sorts of ways. We’re certainly also going to push the technology that we use forward. We learned so much, particularly in regard to the infected and how to better deliver scenes with them. So, we’re just going to keep moving the bar up and up and up.”
In any case, baited breath is name of the game for eager fans of The Last of Us, and it sounds like Mazin and Druckmann are dead set making the wait worth every second and more.