HBO’s The Last of Us season two is set to expose itself to the world sometime next year, but it’ll, unfortunately, be a little on the lighter side in comparison to season 2’s beefy episode count.

Spreading its narrative over seven episodes, season 2 will be two episodes short when looking at season 1, which came in at 9 episodes, but this seems to be deliberate as showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann prepare for a potentially “significantly larger” Season 3.

Earlier this week, Craig and Neil Druckmann discussed The Last of Us season two’s episode count, and the potential for season 3, while hinting at some story details for the upcoming show.

Speaking with Deadline, Mazin said that the source material they are working on from The Last of Us Part 2 is “way more than the story material that was in the first game”, so it would make better sense to explore that across multiple seasons rather than squash everything into one. “When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”

With everything crossed for another season and that a 3rd will get greenlit depending on how well the upcoming season fairs, Mazin said that his hopes to continue the story could move into a potential season 3 and even 4. “We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too,” Mazin adds. “We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4.”

Talking about season 2”s theme, and just like the game itself, Druckmann says it will explore the dark side of love, which is the polar opposite of season 1. One key element they don’t want to do is to go beyond The Last of Us’ source material, akin to Game of Thrones, but they also want to explore different avenues that may not have been highlighted in the games much as well as delve into stories that haven’t been exposed before.

“Our show as people know it on HBO is going to cover the material from the second game and then quite a bit of material that is relevant to that story but, as I said, wanders down interesting new paths, unseen stories that were told within the context of that game’s material,” stated Mazin.

Season 2 is currently filming in Canada as several cast members return once more, including many new members too. Alongside Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna and Rutina Wesley are also slipping back into the shoes of Tommy and Maria.