Whereas Naughty Canine has solely teased the third installment in The Final of Us franchise, co-writer and director Neil Druckmann mentioned lately sequels are by no means a part of his preliminary plans. Speaking together with Sony Santa Monica head Cory Barlog on the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, the 2 chatted with an viewers about their doubts about their artistic course of.

After taking just a few pre-submitted viewers questions, one got here throughout which requested concerning the improvement of sequels and how one can keep character improvement over a number of video games. Druckmann mentioned he goes one sport at a time and does not assume that far forward.

“That is a very simple query for me to reply, as a result of I by no means take into consideration a number of video games as a result of I am the sport in entrance of us is so all-consuming,” he responded (via IGN). “I feel you are jinxing your self in case you’re beginning to consider the sequel once you’re engaged on the primary sport. So once I was making The Final of Us 2, yeah, certain. Each every now and then an concept pops in your head of the place it’d go if we get the possibility to do one other one. However I simply strategy it as, ‘what if I by no means get to do one other one?’ I am not saving some concept for the long run. If there is a cool concept, I am doing my greatest to get it into right here.”

Druckmann expanded on how his technique for character arcs works which merely boiled right down to if they cannot transfer ahead, he mentioned he jokingly would kill them off.

“I am half joking, however we simply discover the subsequent sport. After we made Uncharted 1, we had no concept we might do the prepare sequence of Uncharted 2, or the place Nathan Drake could be. We figured it out after we made Uncharted 2. And ultimately, the identical after we labored on Uncharted 3, identical after we labored on Uncharted 4, the place we glance again and say, ‘How will we not repeat ourselves? The place else might this character go? What else might get him again into the journey?’,” he defined.

“And we’ve to give you a brand new reply,” he continued. “And if we do not have a brand new reply then we should always ask ourselves, is that this the suitable character? Is that this the suitable sport for us to work on? Or is it time to seek out one thing new?”

Talking of recent, again in November, Druckmann confirmed through the Jewish Visionaries in Gaming discussion–appearing alongside BioShock designer Ken Levine–that he was engaged on his first new sport since 2020.

“I am unable to discuss it or our bosses will get very mad at me,” he mentioned on the time.

Season 2 of HBO’s The Final of Us premieres on Max in April and can cowl a few of the occasions The Final of Us Half 2.