Fans of The Last of Us already knew Season 2 was shaping up to be intense, but new comments from the cast and creators suggest the trailer is only a taste of what’s to come. During a panel at South by Southwest (SXSW) ahead of the season’s premiere, stars including Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and Kaitlyn Dever, along with co-showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, teased that the promo footage doesn’t show some of the wildest and most dangerous moments in the upcoming episodes.
The official Season 2 trailer released at SXSW gives viewers a deeper look at groups like the Seraphites and the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), heightening the sense that Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Ramsey) are entering a much more volatile world than before. It also shows glimpses of Ellie’s old friend Dina (Isabela Merced) and new threats that echo the complex emotional and moral landscape of The Last of Us Part II, the video game on which this season is based.
But according to Druckmann, there’s a lot more happening off-camera. At the SXSW panel, he said outright that “there’s some pretty intense stuff you don’t even see in the trailer,” hinting that Season 2 will explore deeper dangers and dramatic turns that the teaser only scratched the surface of. Mazin agreed, calling the upcoming episodes “a wild roller coaster ride” and noting that the world of the show feels “louder” and more dangerous than ever.
That sense of danger matches the narrative arc the series is following. Season 2 jumps ahead five years from the end of Season 1, showing Joel and Ellie living in relative peace in Jackson, Wyoming, only to be thrown back into chaos by new enemies and old ghosts. Fans of the game will recognize this setup as the beginning of a more complex and emotionally charged chapter, one that expands beyond survival into territory filled with vengeance, betrayal, and morally ambiguous choices.
While the cast hasn’t revealed specific scenes or plot twists, their language makes it clear that The Last of Us Season 2 is aiming for both a bigger scale and a more immersive impact than its predecessor. The season, consisting of seven episodes, premieres on April 13, 2025 on HBO and will stream on Max.
In short, the new trailer may set the stage, but the cast’s comments suggest audiences will feel the real intensity when they watch the full episodes and that what they saw so far is just the calm before a stormier, grittier continuation of the story.
