Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann nixed a Last of Us prequel

In its final episode, HBO’s Last of Us went deeper into a character who was left unexplored in the original video game: Ellie’s mom, Anna. Still, her scenes were only a small part of the show, leaving plenty of unanswered questions — questions that could have been answered in a prequel game that The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann said was briefly in the works.

Druckmann told video game podcast Kinda Funny that he wanted to write Anna’s fuller backstory into a video game to be developed outside of Naughty Dog, but it just didn’t pan out. Druckmann said he talked to the unnamed studio for “quite a while” before the talks fell apart.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for the ninth episode of The Last of Us.]

There’s a lot of material there to work with, given how little of Anna’s story is outlined. We see Anna pregnant, running through woods and being chased by an infected man. She hides out in a run-down house where she realizes she’s in active labor: a harrowing experience of bringing life into such violence. She’s bitten shortly before she gives birth to Ellie, cutting the umbilical cord soon after — presumably the reason that Ellie’s immune.

That’s when Marlene comes in, moments too late, and agrees to take the baby. The prequel game might have covered everything that led up to those moments.

While Druckmann didn’t write the idea off entirely, it feels unlikely to happen. Naughty Dog has been working on an unannounced project, as he shared it on Kinda Funny Spoilercast. Druckmann didn’t share what the game is, despite saying he knows fans want The Last of Us: Part 3..

“We’re already into our next project, so the decision has already been made,” Druckmann said. “I can’t say what it is, but […] there was a lot of consideration of different things, and we picked the thing we were most excited for.”

Naughty dog is also gearing to reveal its The Last of Us multiplayer project. It’s expected to debut this year.