HBO released a new trailer for “The Last of Us” Season 2 on Thursday, which is slated to premiere in the first half of 2025.
The 1-minute and 57-second tease features a conversation between Catherine O’Hara, who guest stars in a currently undisclosed role, and Pedro Pascal’s Joel, in which she’s trying to get information out of him — likely what happened during the events of the Season 1 finale.
“You can’t heal something unless you’re brave enough to say it out loud,” O’Hara tells a silent Joel. “Say the thing you’re afraid to say. Say it out loud no matter what it is, no matter how bad. What did you do?”
Scored to Pearl Jam’s “Future Days,” the video flashes through various moments pulled straight from “The Last of Us: Part II,” including Joel teaching Ellie (Bella Ramsey) how to play guitar, a zombie horde chasing after Abby in the snow and Ellie playing guitar for Dina.
In addition to first looks at Kaitlyn Dever as Abby and Isabela Merced as Dina, other new characters showcased include Young Mazino’s Jesse and Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac. It also shows Gabriel Luna, who returns as Joel’s brother Tommy, and Rutina Wesley, who returns as Tommy’s wife Maria.
The series, which is based on the Naughty Dog and PlayStation video game franchise of the same name, takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. The story follows Joel, a hardened survivor, who is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Season 2 takes place five years later as Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them, drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.
In addition to O’Hara, Dever, Merced, Wright and Mazino, other new cast members include Ariela Barer, Tati Gabrielle, Spencer Lord and Danny Ramirez as Abby’s friends Mel, Nora, Owen and Manny, respectively.
The trailer for Season 2 coincides with “Outbreak Day,” an annual event for “Last of Us” fans to celebrate the franchise, now in its 11th year. Outbreak Day takes place on Sept. 26 — the date in which the cordyceps virus catalyzed the events of “The Last of Us.”
“The Last of Us” Season 1 became one of the most-watched debut seasons of a series ever for HBO, with the premiere drawing 4.7 million viewers across linear and Max — the second largest since “Boardwalk Empire” launched in 2010. The Season 1 finale marked a 74.5% increase from the premiere with 8.2 million viewers.
In Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2023 released in May of that year, the company revealed that the show averaged nearly 32 million cross-platform viewers per episode in the U.S., based on Nielsen and first-party data.
“The Last of Us” is written and executive produced by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. The pair is also set to direct episodes in the upcoming season alongside new additions Mark Mylod (“Succession), Nina Lopez-Corrado (“Perry Mason”), Stephen Williams (“Watchmen”) and Kate Herron (“Loki”), and returning director Peter Hoar, who was nominated for an Emmy for Season 1’s third episode, “Long, Long Time.”
Mazin previously told TheWrap that “The Last of Us” could extend beyond two seasons, given the story of the video game’s sequel being “much bigger.” He also teased that the show would “adapt as we see fit” to “expand where we want, to change where we want and to keep things exactly the same where we want.”
Other executive producers include Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O’Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Evan Wells. The show is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television. Production companies on the project include PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint and Naughty Dog.
