It’s September 26, and that means it’s The Last of Us Day, according to developer Naughty Dog. This is the in-universe date in which the cordyceps fungus outbreak began in the original PlayStation 3 game, and it has since become a real-world “celebration” of the series, complete with merch sales and teases for upcoming projects. Since the multiplayer project Naughty Dog has been working on has been canned, there isn’t really any big video game news this year. However, that little HBO show that won a bunch of awards has a second season on the way, and we did get a new teaser.
The two-minute trailer is set to Pearl Jam’s “Future Days,” which fans will know is a pivotal song in The Last of Us Part II. We see several recognizable scenes from the sequel here, including Pedro Pascal’s Joel teaching Bella Ramsey’s Ellie how to play guitar, a central moment from the game that uses the Pearl Jam song to lay on its themes of losing oneself when losing another real thick. So it looks like the show will be adapting that scene pretty faithfully, but we don’t know if they’re learning the same song considering the show’s timeline starts in 2003, 10 years earlier than the game’s, for some reason. Thus, the song would have never been recorded in 2013. We later see Ellie playing guitar for her girlfriend Dina (Isabela Merced) and dealing with the Seraphite cult based in The Last of Us’ version of Seattle. So it does look like most of the second season will cover Ellie’s revenge tour in the city.
But it might not be that simple. We also see some flashes of other characters, including one of the best shots we’ve gotten yet of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, the co-protagonist of The Last of Us Part II who is the playable character for most of the game’s second half. Given that the events we see in the trailer seem to be mostly Ellie-centric, it’s unclear just how much of her we’ll see in the second season, though HBO has confirmed it plans to divide the game’s narrative into multiple seasons. However, given that we see Jeffrey Wright as Isaac in this trailer, who doesn’t appear in the first half of the game before Abby takes center stage, it does seem like the show is taking some liberties with the divided structure of the game.
Other notable appearances include returning actors Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy and Rutina Wesley as his wife Maria. We also get our first look at Young Mazino as Jesse, who seems to be helping build shelter at the Jackson, Wyoming town Joel and Ellie live in.
Like the first teaser, we also get a glimpse of what appears to be a therapy session for Joel with a new character played by Schitt’s Creek’s Catherine O’Hara. It’s unclear how much Joel is actually going to be in this season, but again, the show seems to be taking some creative liberties with the source material. We also see what looks like it could be one of the last scenes in The Last of Us Part II in which Joel and Ellie have a significant conversation on his back porch, so I’m not sure just how the show might play with the game’s structure. I guess we’ll find out when the show premieres on Max in 2025.