Take On Me: Neil Druckmann's $2 Billion Dilemma

"Don't bet on there being more of The Last of Us. This could be it." - Neil Druckmann, March 2025, Variety.

I still remember sitting in silence after finishing the first Last of Us in 2013. My controller rested in my hands, my mind replaying that final "Okay" from Ellie – perhaps the most loaded single word in gaming history. When Part II arrived, I closed my consultancy for three days to play uninterrupted. Few cultural experiences have affected me so deeply, which perhaps explains why Tuesday's news about The Last of Us Part III hit differently.

According to industry insider Daniel Richtman, the game isn't just greenlit – it's in "advanced production" with casting done and scenes already filmed. This comes just days after Naughty Dog's creative head Neil Druckmann told Variety "don't bet on there being more of The Last of Us."

The contradiction isn't just strange – it feels like calculated misdirection. While Druckmann's words draw our attention one way, a billion-dollar machine churns in the opposite direction.

The Numbers Behind The Narrative

The Last of Us isn't just another franchise – it's an industry cornerstone with a $2 billion valuation:

• Game Sales: 37 million copies at an average of $70 per unit = $2.59 billion in revenue.

• HBO Adaptation: First season pulling 4.7 million viewers per episode —their second-biggest debut since Boardwalk Empire. Now, with over 24 million views on the Season 2 trailer in just four days, the momentum only builds.

• Merchandising: And then comes limited editions and licensed products generating millions annually via deals with Youtooz, gallerynucleus, Spin Master Toys and PlayStation Gear.

These numbers tell only half the story. Behind every billion-dollar valuation stands a team of creators wrestling with a fundamental tension: making art that lives within the constraints of commerce. 

When I connected with a few Naughty Dog developers remotely in early 2023, I could sense the artistic conviction even through the lens of Zoom. Behind one developer, blurred background art from their cultural landmarks was still recognisable: Uncharted. Jak and Daxter. The Last of Us. Each represents not just games but a dynasty of intellectual property that functions more like sovereign currency than mere entertainment.

A senior developer – let's call him "Alex" – messaged me privately after our call had ended. "Every time we think we're done with Joel and Ellie's story," he confided, "we realise there's more to say. It's like they won't let us go."

He added a nervous laughing emoji, as if he'd revealed something illicit. Then came that classic three-dotted pause – that moment when the typing indicator appears and disappears several times as someone carefully weighs the gravity of their words.

He finally continued. "Whenever someone suggests we're finished with The Last of Us, someone else inevitably points to more story to tell." When I asked about this, another pause. "Let's just say some character arcs have question marks next to them."

Most entertainment products follow a fixed trajectory: big launch, diminishing returns, eventual obsolescence. What makes The Last of Us unusual is its half-life. Most games depreciate in value about 80% by year three. The Last of Us appreciates.

If you drew a graph, you'd get two curves: one dropping sharply (typical product revenue), another climbing steadily (player emotional investment). In most games, they never intersect. With The Last of Us, they create a feedback loop with multiple touchpoints enabling consistent engagement. 

The Wall Street Theory of Gaming

When a property crosses the billion-dollar threshold, it stops being treated as a creative product and becomes infrastructure. The question isn't should we make more? but how do we ensure we don't lose this revenue stream?

"The challenge isn't finding new IP – it's knowing when to let successful ones rest."

The Sony executive who told me this during our video call last November sounded genuinely tormented, even through a somewhat grainy Teams call. As he spoke about franchise longevity, he toyed with what appeared to be a Last of Us collector's item on his desk – one of those small, tangible reminders of the massive properties under his stewardship. The irony wasn't lost on me: here was a man whose success is measured by extending franchise lifespans, wrestling with the very question of when to let them conclude.

Blockbuster franchises aren't just cash cows—they're financial ecosystems. 

When EA Sports FC generates billions, or Call of Duty delivers its annual windfall, what you're witnessing is a private equity strategy, some may say, disguised as entertainment. Smart studios use these titanium-plated annuities to bankroll their wildest creative bets, like a Vegas high-roller maintaining a sensible stock portfolio alongside their gambling.

The maths in this respect is brutally simple:

One established franchise churning out reliable revenue can underwrite three or four moonshot projects. But what happens to studios that simply extract without reinvestment? Let's imagine a fictional case, imagine M-TEX Oil discovering a gusher and spending the windfall on shareholder dividends instead of exploration. Years later, they're desperately trying to extract the last drops from depleted fields while nimbler competitors stake claims in territories they never bothered to map.

The divide in gaming isn't between indie and AAA—it's between companies viewing billion-dollar franchises as renewable resources requiring cultivation and those treating them like extractive industries. You can predict a studio's future by asking: is that blockbuster funding tomorrow's IP, or just next quarter's earnings report?

The Auteur's Dilemma

What makes The Last of Us situation unique is Druckmann's position. Unlike most gaming auteurs who answer to executives and boards, he ascended to become co-president following Evan Wells retirement. The org chart gives him unprecedented authority to make artistic choices regardless of commercial impact.

As Alex Garland acknowledged during their Creator to Creator conversation, what impressed him about The Last of Us was how it defied industry wisdom: "There was, for a long time, a kind of received wisdom within the game industry... that it was essentially anti-narrative." Yet Naughty Dog proved games could deliver stories with themes and characterizations as sophisticated as any book or film.

[Click to Watch the Creator Conversation]

So what happens when a visionary creator declares their magnum opus complete? Does Druckmann's insistence that The Last of Us might be finished signal genuine artistic restraint, or merely the first act in a familiar industry dance?

George Lucas is probably best referred to for this cautionary tale. He insisted Star Wars was complete, then made the prequels. Insisted the saga was done with six films, then sold to Disney who've made five more. Creators who say they're done are almost never actually done (especially, and until, they maintain creative control).

This tension became evident when Shuhei Yoshida revealed that The Last of Us Online was cancelled after "Bungie explained what it takes to make live service games, and Naughty Dog realised, 'Oops, we can't do that!'" 

Naughty Dog's willingness to walk away from a "great" multiplayer game – representing significant investment – revealed their commitment to focused storytelling. This strategic narrowing of focus – choosing quality over quantity, single-player narrative over live service expansion – suggests a studio drawing boundaries around its creative resources. "We had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog's heritage," they explained when announcing the cancellation in December 2023.

When Fans Become Stakeholders

The passionate relationship between franchise and audience can be best explained during a walk with a friend last December. As our conversation drifted to The Last of Us, I noticed Ellie's fern tattoo curling up her forearm.

"I cried for like, a week after Part II," she admitted. "It felt so complete, like the perfect conclusion." She paused, then added with absolute sincerity: "But also, I would literally sell a kidney for Part III."

What followed was a debate where we both seemed simultaneously certain and conflicted – like parents watching their child leave for university, proud of their independence yet secretly hoping they'll still come home regularly.

This emotional investment creates a strange power dynamic. While most entertainment is produced for audiences, culturally significant works transform audiences into advocates who defend artistic integrity, often against the very market forces that would extend it.

When Part II released in 2020, its narrative choices created unprecedented backlash. The game made the audacious decision to kill Joel early, then force players to spend half the game as his killer, Abby—the equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back making you play as Darth Vader after watching him kill Luke.

Druckmann received death threats. Voice actors faced harassment. Review aggregators had to change their policies after thousands of zero-score reviews appeared minutes after release—before anyone could possibly have finished the 25-hour game.

The people who hated Part II's choices weren't rejecting the story—they were protecting their version of the characters. In a twisted way, that's a higher compliment than any review.

[Click to Watch The Last of Us Part 2's Ending]

Beyond Entertainment: When Games Become Personal

The depth of connection to this franchise hit home when I received an email from a reader following my 2023 post. She had played through both games with her father during his final months battling pancreatic cancer.

"Joel and Ellie gave us a vocabulary for things we couldn't say directly," she wrote. "We talked about loss and sacrifice and the lengths you go to for people you love – all through the safe distance of discussing these characters."

Three months after our initial exchange, she wrote again. Her father had sadly passed. "I don't know if I want Part III," she concluded. "But I also don't want to say goodbye completely."

Stories like hers remind me that the $2 billion question isn't just about business strategy or creative integrity – it's about the profound ways these characters have become woven into the emotional fabric of people's lives. Whether Druckmann chooses continuation or conclusion, he's making decisions that will resonate far beyond balance sheets and quarterly earnings calls.

This emotional currency translates directly to actual currency. It explains why an Etsy creator has made £183,954 selling handcrafted Last of Us pendants. Why HBO strategically split The Last of Us Part II's storyline across multiple seasons—building narrative airbags to prepare viewers for emotional impacts that players experienced in concentrated, sometimes traumatic doses.

What we're witnessing isn't just franchise expansion—it's the evolution of a true transmedia phenomenon. The purpose of these “Constellation Narratives” (Credit to Igor Simic 🔜 GDC ,CEO and Creative Director at Demagog Studio), isn't simply to grow IP across platforms, but to transform titles like The Last of Us into cultural touchstones that shape entertainment and storytelling in the 21st century. At its core, these narratives create an entertainment ecosystem with multiple touch points where each expression—game, show, merchandise—enhances rather than dilutes the central experience. The HBO adaptation doesn't merely retell the game's story; it recontextualizes it, reaching audiences who might never pick up a controller. Each element serves as both entry point and enhancement.

As I write this, I'm drawn to that haunting moment in Part II when Ellie, fingers still intact, plays a stripped-down acoustic cover of A-ha's "Take On Me" for Dina. A striped back song about fleeting connection transformed into a meditation on mortality and love's impermanence. 

Perhaps this is the perfect metaphor for Druckmann's dilemma – and our own as fans. Do we Take On the commercial desire for more, knowing we may never recapture that original magic? Or do we appreciate what exists, complete in its emotional impact, and let it resonate in memory and these beautiful moments that matter, rather than risk diminishing returns?

The Dilemma - A Necessary Ending

So will we see The Last of Us Part III?

In many ways, the financial machinery is already in motion. The commercial incentives are locked in. The audience is ready. But perhaps the contradiction between Druckmann's statement and the production leaks reveals a deeper truth: it's no longer about whether The Last of Us will continue, but whether it can still serve the emotional integrity that made its predecessors so special.

I imagine Druckmann at 3 AM, pacing in his home, surrounded by concept art and script drafts, a half-empty coffee cup growing cold. The same tension that Joel faced at the hospital – between what's right for one versus what's right for many – now surely must play out in Druckmann's career. The irony isn't lost. The character he created, who chose personal connection over humanity's future, surely must haunt the creator who must now choose between artistic closure and commercial continuation.

We can picture the executives who see the franchise as infrastructure – the production slate, marketing budgets, merchandising roadmaps, all calibrated to extract maximum value. And then there's Druckmann, seeing only the faces of Joel and Ellie, characters who have lived in his imagination longer than some of our relationships.

This tension isn't unique to gaming – it's the defining struggle of our creative economy. From Marvel's endless cinematic universe to streaming platforms rebooting every nostalgic property, we've constructed financial systems that actively resist narrative closure. The most financially successful stories never conclude; they simply pause between monetisation cycles.

What we're witnessing with The Last of Us is happening across film, television, literature – any medium where art and commerce intersect. When Netflix resurrects cancelled shows after fan campaigns, when authors extend supposedly finished series, when filmmakers return to franchises they swore were complete – it's all the same fundamental conflict between creative production and commercial momentum. Druckmann just happens to be fighting this battle with unprecedented creative control and two billion dollars on the line.

What happens when a story becomes too valuable to end but too precious to continue? When the cost of walking away isn't measured in dollars but in the stories left untold? The answer might lie in that acoustic cover of "Take On Me" – a reminder that sometimes the most powerful version of something comes not from elaboration but from stripping away. Ellie with her guitar, playing a song about fleeing and staying, about taking on uncertainty together – it's the perfect distillation of the franchise itself.

Great stories, like great songs, find their power not just in what they contain but in what they leave to echo in silence. Maybe the most fitting conclusion for a franchise about love, loss, and difficult choices is one that doesn't try to resolve these tensions but allows them to reverberate, unresolved, the way Ellie's final note hangs in the air before Dina. The way Joel's lie to Ellie at the end of the first game created the moral gravity for everything that followed. The way that final "Okay" still resonates years later, reminding us that the most profound stories are the ones that don't end with answers, but with questions we can't stop asking.

[Click to Watch the Ellie’s acoustic cover of A-ha's "Take On Me" for Dina]

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P.S. I'm sadly not able to make GDC, as we've just sold our house. A moment that naturally makes me think about Maximo Park's classic. But, if you're heading there, and would like to connect, then please feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear your thoughts and reflections post-conference.

Until next Friday,

Peter

Before 5 on Friday is Peter Bell's weekly newsletter exploring leadership, innovation, and cultural transformation in primarily the gaming and entertainment industries. Join us every Friday for more insights that challenge, inspire, and spark your imagination, delivered straight to you every week.