Writing is paused on The Last of Us Season 2 for HBO, but showrunner Craig Mazin is hopeful that the new season won't be delayed due to ongoing Hollywood strikes. Speaking to Deadline, Mazin said the production timeline hasn't been shifted enough yet to cause a delay, but "we're getting pretty close."

"We had a little more flexibility I think than normally just because we had to wait a little bit longer anyway to line up production with the weather. A lot of what we do is outside, and so we had a schedule that weirdly hasn’t been immediately impacted. But we're getting pretty close; wе can't keep our original start dates forever obviously," he said.

The big Hollywood writers' union, WGA, went on strike on May and there is no end in sight as of yet. The actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, began its strike on July 13. Writers and actors are striking for better pay and residuals, and protections against the rise of artificial intelligence, among other things. It is expected that a number of film and TV projects will be delayed due to the strikes.

"If these strikes go much longer we inevitably will have to push and that hurts us, and it hurts the audience, and it hurts HBO," Mazin said. "We all, everybody wants to get back to work; I think everybody that's actually doing the work, including the network people who are with us on the ground, I think everybody just wants to get this solved. So fingers crossed."

Season 2 Episode 1 is already written, having been completed just before the strike began in May, Mazin said. But with the WGA on strike, Mazin is not writing anything else... on paper, at least.

"So now I'm just walking around kind of brain-writing, I guess, which I don't think is scabbing," he said. "I take walks and I think through the scenes because when the bell rings and this is over because the companies have finally come to their senses, I'm going to have to basically shoot myself out of a cannon because we really want to try and get this show on the air when it's supposed to be on the air."

Before this, HBO said Season 2 was expected to release in 2025. That was the plan prior to the start of the writers' strike, so things could have changed since then.

Also in the interview, Mazin confirmed again that a third season of The Last of Us is coming, unless people don't watch Season 2 and the show gets canceled--that seems very unlikely.

"We will be doing some things exactly the way they were in the game. We're going to do other things that are in the game and we're gonna do some things that are in the game but we're gonna do them differently in our own method," he said. "No matter if you have played the game or not. You will be surprised as the season unfolds. We have some interesting twists and turns."

Mazin also teased that "there is always a chance for everything" on the show, and that includes jumping around in different timelines. But what viewers will not see in Season 2 is another Bill and Frank episode, Mazin said, referring to Season 1's beloved third episode feature a love story between Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett's characters. "We aren't going to milk it," Mazin said.

In a different interview, Mazin said he expects there to be "furor" over what happens in Season 2.