Image: HBO
The Last of Us is bringing something back from the games.
HBO’s The Last of Us Season 2 has unveiled an all-new trailer, teasing an emotionally turbulent journey for Ellie and Joel in its forthcoming episodes. The trailer was released during the series’ SXSW 2025 panel, which featured its cast and creators in attendance to promote the second season. The season will premiere on 13 April, 2025.
Watch the trailer below. Eagle-eye viewers might also spot a special connection to the games, which was previously absent in the series:
The Last of Us Season 2 shows off new trailer
HBO’s second season of The Last of Us is almost one month away from premiering. To wind up marketing for the series, its cast and creators dropped by SXSW 2025 to show off a new trailer for the upcoming season. The Last of Us Season 2 consists of seven episodes, partly adapting the events of Naughty Dog’s PlayStation 4 game The Last of Us Part 2. Its co-game director Neil Druckmann is showrunning the series with Craig Mazin (Chernobyl).
The trailer shows off several scenes fans might recognise from the game, but we won’t dive into spoilers here. We do see what appears to be a direct continuation of Season 1’s storyline, which left off with Joel saving Ellie from the Fireflies, a faction that planned to kill her and potentially salvage a cure to the global pandemic that was turning people into cordyceps-infected monsters.
In Season 2, we see Joel and Ellie grapple with the consequences of the former’s actions, with Joel having lied to Ellie that the Fireflies were, in fact, safe and sound. We also see a few newcomers to the cast: Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), Dina (Isabela Merced), and Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright), all of whom are featured heavily in The Last of Us Part 2. Notably, Wright reprises his role as Isaac for the series, having also played the character in the game. Young Mazino also stars as Jesse, while Catherine O’Hara plays an unknown role.
Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsay, and Gabriel Luna will return to play Joel Miller, Ellie, and Joel’s brother Tommy, respectively. We also see what appears to be new factions – one of which is wearing coats and seemingly torturing people in the forest, while the other is decidedly more militaristic in nature.
Here’s the kicker: this trailer also has a brief scene (around the 1:18 timestamp) shared between Ellie and an unknown Infected, who breathes spores into the air towards her. The HBO series infamously opted to cut spores from its adaptation of the games, but it looks like Season 2 will reintroduce them in a different context. In the original games, anyone who breathed in spores would quickly turn into Infected.
The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on 13 April, 2025.
