'The Last of Us' season two will be shorter than the first to ensure each episode feels like its own "blockbuster".
Series one of the HBO programme – which stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey – released with nine episodes, but showrunner Craig Mazin has revealed the next season will come with fewer instalments because the story is going to be "much bigger" than the first one.
Speaking to Deadline, he said: "We just want to put people's minds at ease that the idea that this season coming up is a little bit shorter than the first one is not because we're taking less time to tell the stories, it's because we want to take more time.
"The story that we're telling is much bigger than the story of season one, there's just a lot more going on, it's a lot harder to produce but we want every episode to feel like its own blockbuster to be honest with you."
Mazin added the story of 'The Last of Us' may spill over into a fourth season.
He said: "We don't think that we're going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [two and three] because we're taking our time and [going] down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in season one too.
"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 three will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require season four."
