Kaitlyn Dever‘s Abby in Season 2 of The Last of Us will be different in more ways than one from her video game counterpart, series creator Neil Druckmann recently confirmed. Druckmann earlier stated that Dever’s iteration of the character would not have the same muscular physique that Abby of the game does. Now, in a recent remark, he teased that the series would address how Abby was connected to Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie earlier than the game.
Neil Druckmann talks major changes to Abby in The Last of Us Season 2
Druckmann, who also co-created the games, implied that Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation would introduce the link Abby shared with Joel and Ellie much earlier in the narrative than its source material, The Last of Us Part II. He explained that people “immediately” formed an “empathic connection” with her as they were “surviving as her,” “running through the snow,” and “fighting infected.” As a result, in the game, Druckmann and his team could “withhold certain things” and “make it a mystery that will be revealed later in the story.” He added, “We couldn’t do that in the show because you’re not playing as her.” ( via Gold Derby)
According to Druckmann, if they had stuck to the game’s timeline in the show, “viewers would have to wait a very, very long time to get that context.” He elaborated, “It would probably get spoiled to them between seasons, and we didn’t want that, so it felt appropriate for those reasons to move that up and give the viewer that context right off the bat.”
This comes after Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly that they cast Dever as Abby because she was an “incredible actor” and they valued “performance over anything else.”
The Last of Us Season 1 adapted 2013’s The Last of Us in its entirety. However, 2020’s The Last of Us Part II will be adapted across multiple seasons. Notably, HBO executive Francesca Orsi implied to Deadline in February 2024 that the series might have a four-season run.
The first season of The Last of Us originally aired from January 15, 2023, to March 12, 2023. The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on HBO on April 13, 2025.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on ComingSoon.
