We may have to wait a while yet to find out what horrors await Joel and Ellie, as HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys told a press conference Thursday that "The Last of Us" season 2 will go into production in early 2024 He said.

Bloys explained that production has been delayed due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (now resolved). Variety reported that the show's second season was not listed on HBO's 2024 programming list.

However, that does not mean that production is not already underway. The original "Last of Us" game spawned a sequel, "The Last of Us: Part II," directed by show co-creator Neil Drachman, and he and showrunner Craig Mazin already have plans to adapt it to the small screen.

"Season 2 is all outlined, and we can get started as soon as the strike is over," Drachman told Entertainment Weekly in September.

"We've got the whole outline for Season 2," Mazin told the magazine in an August interview.

"And then we wrote the script for the first episode, submitted it, and sent it [to HBO] right before midnight, right before the [WGA] strike started, at about 10:30 or 10:40 p.m., and we were like, 'We're going to do it.'

"I think it's essentially becoming almost a certainty that we won't be able to start (filming) when we wanted to start.

"And Mazin added.

Not much information has been confirmed about Season 2 of The Last of Us, but it is almost certain that the two survivors of pandemic-stricken America, Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, will return. Because of the time slip between the first and second Last of Us films, questions have swirled about whether Ramsey will remain in the next phase of Ellie's adventures.

However, Mazin told the press in March that Season 2 "will not be exactly the same as the game, it will be the show Neil and I want to make. We are making it with Bella."

Of course, with the strike delaying production, all of this could be moot if Season 2 takes longer to produce. In addition, The Last of Us: Part II is considerably messier than its predecessor in terms of story and pacing, not to mention the backlash from players over certain narrative decisions.

Given how successful the first season was, it goes without saying that HBO will likely give Mazin and Drachman creative freedom to tell this story as they see fit. However, given the special challenges that Season 2 will face compared to Season 1, it seems to me that the longer they bake in the oven, the better.