GLOBAL PHENOMENON! The Last of Us Season 2 Sees Audience Surge Past 90 Million, Average Viewership Climbs & Season 4 Looks Likely!
Fantastic news for fans of the acclaimed series! HBO is celebrating the monumental success of The Last of Us Season 2, revealing an “influx” of viewers has rocketed the show’s global audience to over 90 million since the conclusion of Season 1.
While the U.S. Season 2 finale drew 3.7 million cross-platform viewers last night – a figure Warner Bros. anticipates will “grow significantly” as viewership catches up post-Memorial Day weekend – the bigger picture for Season 2 is incredibly bright. Though the finale number is currently below the Season 2 premiere’s 5.3 million and Season 1’s record-setting 8.2 million finale viewers, Season 2 boasts an even stronger overall engagement.
The truly exciting news is that Season 2 has achieved a higher average viewer figure per episode than its predecessor. It’s currently captivating nearly 37 million worldwide viewers per episode, a number Warner Bros. confirms is “growing.” This outpaces Season 1, which concluded with 32 million U.S. cross-platform viewers per episode at 90 days post-premiere, underscoring the show’s expanding dedicated fanbase.
The Last of Us originally premiered in January 2023 to widespread critical acclaim, with many hailing it as one of the best video game adaptations ever made. Its incredible first season scooped up an impressive eight Emmy awards from 24 nominations, cementing its status as a television powerhouse.
While critical reception for the Season 2 finale was more mixed (IGN’s review awarded it a 6/10, noting its “agonising cliffhanger” reached at “breakneck speed”), the overall journey of Season 2 has delivered strong episodes, with IGN reviews for other installments hitting scores as high as 9/10.
Looking ahead, the future of the series seems bright. Showrunner Craig Mazin recently indicated that a fourth season is highly probable, suggesting that fully adapting the story from Naughty Dog’s video games would be a monumental task for just one more season. “Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth,” Mazin stated. “That’s the most likely outcome.”
With a massive and growing global audience, and plans already being discussed for a comprehensive narrative arc over future seasons, The Last of Us continues to be a remarkable success story for HBO.
