The Last of Us Season 2 came to its dramatic end last night, finally giving Ellie (Bella Ramsey) the showdown she thought she wanted with Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Things obviously didn’t go the way Ellie wanted and the second season of the HBO hit ends with yet another torrent of violence. In fact, it’s unclear if Ellie even survives The Last of Us Season 2! Is last night’s Season 2 finale the end of The Last of Us on HBO?

**Spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7, now streaming on MAX**

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7 ends with Abby somehow tracking Ellie, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Jesse (Young Mazino), and Dina (Isabela Merced) to the theater they’ve been using as their hideout. Abby holds Tommy hostage, murders Jesse, and points her gun at Ellie. As Ellie pleads for her life, explaining that she actually didn’t mean to kill Abby’s friends Mel (Ariela Barer) and Owen (Spencer Lord), Abby fumes that she let her live. In Abby’s eyes, Ellie has wasted her second chance.

Abby pulls the trigger on her gun and the screen cuts to black. It’s unclear if Ellie has been shot or not.

Then The Last of Us Season 2 reveals one last twist. The second season of the show ends with a flashback. We see Abby waking up back at the W.L.F. headquarters. Her pal Manny (Danny Ramirez) tells her their leader Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) wants to see her. She then walks through a hall and goes outside. We discover that the W.L.F. have converted a massive stadium into their home. Gardens grow where NFL games were once played and Abby’s room was once a VIP suite.

A chyron reveals that we have gone back to Seattle: Day One. The Last of Us is now going to show us Abby’s side of this sordid story.

So will there be a Last of Us Season 3? When does TLOU come back? And what will The Last of Us Season 3 be about? Here’s everything you need to know about the future of The Last of Us on HBO…

Will There Be a The Last of Us Season 3?

Yes, HBO is making The Last of Us Season 3. The news broke all the way back on April 9, 2025, which was a few days before the second season even premiered.

When Will The Last of Us Season 3 Come Out?

Full seasons of The Last of Us typically take about two years to make. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey were cast as Joel and Ellie in early 2021 and The Last of Us Season 1 premiered in January 2023. The Last of Us Season 2 was announced two weeks after the show’s debut. It’s been a little over two years since then.

Logic would suggest that the earliest we’ll see The Last of Us Season 3 would be 2027. That said, earlier seasons were delayed by both COVID and the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Filming on The Last of Us Season 2 started in February 2024. If production on the new season can start later this year, we might get The Last of Us Season 3 in late 2026.

What Will The Last of Us Season 3 Be About?

We already have a pretty good sense of what The Last of Us Season 3 will be about. Season 2’s final flashback to Abby’s Seattle: Day One indicates that we’ll follow her version of events over these bloody three days in Season 3.

That lines up with what creators and showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have teased. Mazin told Variety this year that they always planned on splitting the events of The Last of Us II into more than one season. “It feels like we’ve got one or two more seasons,” Mazin said.

During a recent press conference, Mazin and Druckmann teased more about the third season.

“There is another side to this story that we have yet to really delve into,” Craig Mazin said during the press conference. “There’s no question that Abby is the hero of her story. Kaitlyn Dever is the hero of a story always, you know? I mean, if you have Kaitlyn Dever, you use a Kaitlyn Dever.”

The showrunners also teased that they will provide answers to several questions fans might have. “What is going on? How did that war start? How did the Seraphites start? Who is the prophet? What happened to her? What does Isaac want? What’s happening at the end of Episode 7? What is this explosion? What is all of it?” Mazin said. “And all of that will become clear.“

While Mazin and Druckmann were loathe to spill too much about their plans, they did confirm that we will be seeing Kaitlyn Dever, Bella Ramsey, and Isabela Merced return to the show.

“We haven even seen the last of a lot of people who are currently dead in the story,” Mazin said.

When moderator Mallory Rubin asked the showrunners for one final Season 3 nugget, Mazin said, “Rats! What should we talk about?”