There's some good news and bad news about The Last of Us season 3 from Kaitlyn Dever, who starred as Abby in the second season of the hit HBO series, which just celebrated its three-year anniversary of its premiere on Jan. 15, 2026.
Dever will return for season 3 as Abby steps into a much bigger role in the upcoming season than the character had in season 2.
The Last of Us season 3 starts filming soon
In a recent interview with Deadline, Dever revealed that she'll be heading to Vancouver to start filming season 3 very soon. Production listings indicate that production on the third season will actually begin a little bit later this spring with April 1 as a tentative start date. Other sites have reported an early March start date, but they also have production last through almost the end of 2026.
"I’m getting mentally and physically prepped right now," Dever told the outlet. "I go up in a couple days, actually, to start prep over there. I’m so excited to kind of take on a much bigger role in the season."
With Dever taking on a bigger role for the new season, she'll probably be getting to work on the stunt sequences and choreography, costume, and all the other pre-production tasks required on a major zombie show like this one.
The second season ended with a bit of a restart, as fans will remember. We're going back to day one of Ellie's journey to Seattle, and then the third season will likely actually Abby's point-of-view before we find out just how bad things turned out after that big season 2 cliffhanger that ended with Abby and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in quite a standoff.
Here's what Dever said about taking on that bigger role to Deadline:
"The fans are really going to like it, I think, the shifting perspective onto Abby, getting some more context onto her storyline and going back in time with this season. So, I’m very excited for the fans to see it.”
On one hand, it's obviously great news that production is getting started. It's been almost a year since the season 2 premiere of the series. It's not like there's been a huge gap between the season ending and production beginning, but the fact that there was a gap at all is a problem for fans who want to see this third season sooner rather than later.
The Last of Us season 3 probably won't be released until 2027
Unfortunately, it's going be quite a while until we get to see The Last of Us season 3. With production starting this spring and lasting for most of 2026, there's no way that we'd see the season premiere later this year.
It's much more likely that we'll see The Last of Us season 3 released in 2027. It's definitely possible that we could have to wait even longer to see the third season, but I would probably expect to see the new season sometime in summer or late 2027 if production actually last through the end of the year as expected.
That's unfortunate, but it's just what happens with these massive productions like The Last of Us.
Honestly, it's still so wild to me that The Walking Dead cranked out one season a year for like a decade. What an impossible amount of work for those cast and crew members!
We'll share many more updates about The Last of Us season 3 as production gets underway in Canada.