No one knows The Last of Us quite like Neil Druckmann. Having co-created the game at Naughty Dog, he has been with the story from the start – knowing every inch of the world inside and out.

So naturally, he was the perfect fit to help steer the ship when it came to turning the game into a TV series, with Druckmann working closely alongside Craig Mazin in order to map out the story from start to finish… even the scenes we’re yet to see.

As season two kicks off, Druckmann talks about the creation of the show, what lies ahead, and how he’s handled the success of the show so far.

Anyone who says they expected the show to be this successful is lying. The game was extremely successful but in its own territory. There was no guarantee that the success of the game would translate.

I will say that Craig and I felt very confident about what we made, but the entertainment industry is extremely unpredictable. So you can probably imagine how delighted we were when it hit so hard. I especially got a lot of joy out of seeing a whole new audience getting to experience the story and engage with these characters and their relationships— and seeing the numbers growing week after week, like ‘Oh my God, this is a pretty incredible situation to be in.’

This also translated into a lot of stress and pressure going into season 2; making sure that we deliver the same kind of quality that people are expecting from us.

As far as pressure from the outside: I assume Craig does the same as I do, which is to compartmentalize outside voices as quickly as possible because they’re not helpful. It was important to replicate what gave us the success of season one, which was our shared love for the original game; for Craig as a player and for me as a creator.

I also got some relief in that my co-writer [on the second game] Halley Gross joined us in season 2. So then it was about asking: What made the second game successful to us and to an audience? What’s most important about these relationships, their arcs and their journeys? Ultimately that’s what we have to capture. And we worked very, very hard to do that. We are incredibly proud of this thing. Now we have to put it out to the world and see what happens.

I will say it’s a surreal feeling for me to work on the show. I’ve been with this story for roughly seven years, on and off. I’m intimately familiar with every corner of it, every character, every costume, every set, every action sequence. The stuff we brought [from the game into the series] is extremely faithful, to the point where I would often get emotional walking onto a set.

For example, we spent an enormous amount of effort and money to build the city of Jackson, because it’s a character in the story. The big questions were: What happens when communities are at odds with each other and how do you prioritize whom you save and whom you sacrifice for the people you love?

In the second game we were dogmatic about point of view in that you play two characters: Ellie and Abby. When you’re playing Ellie, you’re only seeing her perspective and nothing else; the same with Abby. So there are certain stakes for each character. For the series, we made changes so you get to experience both POVs. I would say that fans of the game are going to fall in love with the live-action adaptations of some of their favorite moments and really appreciate extra explorations that actually fill in some of the gaps in the game. You don’t have to play the game to enjoy the show; you don’t have to watch the show to enjoy the game. But they’re both richer for it because they inform each other.

I was actually surprised how similar our processes were. There’s a lexicon that’s different because I spend most of my career in games and he in Hollywood, but we’re often talking about the same thing — just with different words.

I actually started out as a programmer. I very much have an engineer mind which means I have to think about structure first. Craig is actually very similar. The first thing we did for this season was to break down multiple seasons because the second game actually outlasts one season of TV— unlike the first game which fit into season one of the show. We weren’t quite sure how many episodes all of that entailed, but at least we knew the beats that happen, all the way through to the end.

We also have a series ending in mind that we’re working towards. Once we had that, we said, ‘Okay, now we can see the whole story. Where is the breaking point that makes the most sense?’ And we found it and worked our way backwards and said, ‘Okay how many episodes is that? What happens in each episode?’ And that’s how we landed on the number of seven for this season.

Next season will probably be a different number. And there might be a season after that. We haven’t gotten to that stage yet. As long as we don’t get cancelled!

So it’s all about structure first, then doing deep dives and then we get mired in the details. Craig and I are both perfectionists; we scrutinize every line of dialogue, every prop, every action sequence. Everything has to be character-driven, everything has to move the story forward. Nothing can just be fluff or be there because it’s ‘cool.’

It’s gotta say something about our core relationships and those are ultimately there because they’re speaking to our themes.

There are a few qualities that are important to me. We need a full understanding of who this person is, what makes them unique and how they are different from the whole other cast of characters. Are they talented? Do they have the right physicality for the role? Do they have the right chemistry with the people they’re going to have to act against? Are they bringing a different quality than everybody else?

We’re very allergic to repeating ourselves in any sort of way, and then we meet with them and talk about the role. Usually, we’ve already sent them some scripts, so we get to see how thoughtful they are. We get a sense of what kind of choices they would they make, how they’re seeing the character and what it’s like to work with them. Because there has to be chemistry with us; we’re going to be working them through the scripts or answering their questions, and we want to make sure we get along and they feel safe to experiment and find this role.

Look, it’s a big plus if they’re fans of the game or the series, but it’s not essential. Usually, I recommend that they don’t play the game, but they never listen to me, and they always play the game.

Well, when you tell someone not to do something, that’s usually the first thing they do.

Yes, we should have known that! It’s important to stress to them that the game is its own thing and has its own amazing actors and incredible performances. We tell them, ‘We need you to not copy them; we hired you because we trust you as an artist to internalize the script and who this character is and make it your own.’ That’s how actors do their best work: not by duplicating, but by really owning it and becoming it.

The first season – and the first game – was really an exploration of love, the light and the dark sides of it, what the selflessness of it could lead to; how much you’re willing to sacrifice of yourself to protect someone you love; how in the spirit of trying to protect someone you love, you’re willing to commit really horrible, violent acts. It was an exploration of unconditional love that almost every parent knows the moment they hold their child in their hands; that you’d go to the ends of the earth to protect your kid.

We see these characters who at first don’t like each other get to the point where they’re willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for one another, and by the end of season one, Joel is willing to sacrifice all of humanity to protect Ellie. And not only that, he’s willing to put his relationship with Ellie on the line and lie to her about it in order to protect her. We end season one on that lie, and we see that Ellie is accepting it— but we know how intelligent she is, too.

In season 2, we have jumped five years into the future. They have settled in Jackson. They get to live as good of a life that exists in this world post-apocalypse and pandemic. But there’s some tension between them. Maybe they’re both in denial. Maybe it’s about that specific event or that specific conversation. Maybe it’s about all those things? But it’s unclear at first. Ellie’s now a much older teen. They should be close to each other from what we’ve seen, but they’re not. And that’s kind of the mystery that’s hanging over this relationship of like, well, what happened between those five years? And that’s one thing that’s been really fun to explore – the psychology of these characters and their having experienced trauma together; having hurt each other in significant ways, even if those ways are hidden. What does that do to these people? How does that affect them and how they care and feel about each other? Does that love ever go away or does it become stronger?Those are the fun things we are playing with this season.

Without getting into spoilers: Much of the second-game story takes place in Seattle. So we moved production to Vancouver because it doubled so well for Seattle and afforded us certain production opportunities to get different looks that were all within driving or short flying distance. We had to find a location where we could build almost all of Jackson.

So much of what you see taking place in Jackson was a practical set. I got to walk around this town and there are city streets, the restaurant that you see in the games. These aren’t separate sound stages for the most part. It was a pretty incredible undertaking. And Canadians are just so nice and polite and easy to work with. So many people moved over to B.C. to work on the show because they were either fans of the game or of season one of the show.

Every day I was on set, you could feel the love they had for the material, for the characters, for the scripts, for the story we wanted to tell. And it made our job so much easier to work with such an incredible crew that was so passionate about the things they were building.

This is the first time I’ve had to do something like this. The first time I directed was for the first Last of Us game. I wasn’t sure I’d ever do it again. So I was like, ‘I’m never going to end this on a cliffhanger, it’s gotta be complete and I have to be incredibly proud of it.’

So, in thinking about the show now, we’re essentially adapting a really large opus for season two, but we knew that it wasn’t going to all fit in the season. So we’ve had to plan multiple seasons because we want to make sure we’re not just winging it. Every setup in this show either gets paid off in this season or there’s a very specific plan of how it gets paid off in a future season.

Overall, we have no intention of having a show that just goes on forever. There’s a very specific ending we’re working towards. And I hope we get the chance to tell that full story.