Another day, another announcement that The Last of Us is getting a re-release. It’s happening at a comical rate at this point, butnow that The Last of Us Complete has been revealed and released, players who missed the five other releases of the games have the chance to play both of them back-to-back in a single package.
At face value, there’s nothing new being added to the games. There’s no new content added that wasn’t included inThe Last of Us Part 1orThe Last of Us Part 2 Rematered, it’s just a simple bundle.
That said, there is one big piece of information we can glean from The Last of Us Complete that might be dangling in front of all of our faces without us realizing it. Naughty Dog might have just announced that there will be no more Last of Us games.
The Last Of The Last Of Us
The Last of Us is an incredibly popular series, leaving many gaming enthusiasts begging for more. Naughty Dog knows this and has been periodically making remarks about the existence of a potential The Last of Us Part 3. We’ve heard thatan outline for the third game’s script has been written, thatNaughty Dog willlikelybe making Part 3 in the futureafter it works on some other projects, and there have been plenty of leaks and rumors about various Last of Us projects over the years.
The Last of Us Complete, however, tells a different story with its name. Obviously, “complete” means finished, final, done, which implies that we won’t be getting any more of The Last of Us if the title is meant to be taken literally. Recently,Neil Druckmann said that fans shouldn’t “bet” on there being another game in the seriesdespite his recent statements regarding the script outline and other bits of Last of Us 3 news. The title of The Last of Us Complete, in conjunction with Druckmann’s recent statement, might lead fans to believe that this really is it: the last of The Last of Us.
Is This Really The End Of The Last Of Us?
Despite the title of the bundle, I’m not so sure that this is the end of The Last of Us. While I wouldn’t mindif we never got a Last of Us Part 3, given how good the ending of Part 2 was, the series is one of, if not the flagship gaming franchises for PlayStation, and we’ve seen how much love it’s gotten from the company over the last few years. Between the constant re-releases, PC ports, and the HBO series, it’s clear that Sony is invested in the franchise.
I think The Last of Us Complete was likely made to capitalize on the release of the second season of The Last of Us HBO show, to hopefully seethe same sales results that Sony saw when the first season releasedback in 2023.
What Does ‘Complete’ Even Mean Anymore?
As for the ‘complete’ in the title, a few things can be true at once. On one hand, The Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2 do tell a complete story, one that won’t be getting updated for several years at the very least, while Naughty Dog continues working onIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Obviously, that title might be inaccurate come 2030, but for the foreseeable future, it is the complete edition of The Last of Us story.
Additionally, hold onto your hats, ‘complete editions’ are frequently just flat-out incomplete. For example,Halo: The Master Chief Collectionis missing two games that Master Chief stars in and was released whileHalo 5: Guardianswas in development. There are plenty of game collections that skip content while still calling themselves ‘definitive’ or ‘complete,’ and it seems like, if the series is indeed continuing, The Last of Us Complete might just be another incomplete collection to add to the pile.
It’s not a coincidence that The Last of Us Complete launched days before the second season of the show premiered. It’s likely that the target audience for the bundle isn’t devoted gamers since most of us have already played both Last of Us games in one iteration or another before. Calling it ‘The Last of Us Complete’ seems like a very simple marketing tactic for Sony to use to clarify what people should buy if they want to pick up the games to see what happenswithout needing to wait for the show’s third season.
It’s ironic that Sony would need to clarify things for fans since it’s been releasing versions of both Last of Us games almost yearly since 2020, but sometimes you reap what you sow, I suppose. Maybe Sony would know that if it played The Last of Us Part 2.
