The Last of Us Season 2 Just Confirmed One Major Last of Us Part 2 Change

This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us.

It’s safe to say that HBO’s The Last of Us series is one of the best (if not the best) video game adaptations of all time, but even the excellent first season hasn’t stopped some fans from worrying about season 2, which is set to adapt the much more controversial The Last of Us Part II. Quite a bit of outrage, extremely misguided and otherwise, followed the release of the PlayStation game which saw the introduction of a new playable character named Abby, who in the story makes a…very big first impression that is difficult to shrug off, even after you step into her boots in the second half of the game.

Besides the debate concerning Abby’s very specific role in the story as initially its villain and then a more sympathetic co-protagonist, much was said online about her muscular figure. Yes, in the game, Abby is absolutely ripped, a choice that led to both praise from players as well as hateful comments from a loud minority who felt developer Naughty Dog was trying to push an agenda by featuring a female character who didn’t conform to a specific body type.

Kaitlyn Dever (No One Will Save You), who’s set to play Abby on season 2 of the HBO show, will undoubtedly face similar scrutiny when she’s introduced on screen in April. But while it’s currently unclear just how closely the show will follow the story of Part II—the first season made a few changes to the original, after all—executive producer and game director Neil Druckmann and showrunner Craig Mazin have confirmed one major change to the live-action version of the character: Dever, who has a petite figure, wasn’t asked to bulk up to play Abby.

In a new interview with EW, Druckmann and Mazin addressed the choice to not include a more muscular Abby on the show. In short, they cast Dever in the role because she’s a great actor.

“We value performance over anything else,” Druckmann explained. “We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters…. We don’t value as much, ‘Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?’ Whatever it is. It’s not nowhere on the priority list, but it’s below a bunch of other things that we consider.”

Druckmann also went into detail about how they approached writing the character for television versus the video game. Not having to consider gameplay when it came to casting Abby on the show meant that her physique wasn’t as important a factor this time around.

“In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently,” Druckmann explained. “We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she’s almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things. That doesn’t play as big of a role in this version of the story because there’s not as much violent action moment to moment. It’s more about the drama. I’m not saying there’s no action here. It’s just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”

But there’s more to the change than a simple “games and television are different media” explanation, according to Mazin. He sees Dever’s version of the character as a fresh way to tell the story from the game.

“I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger,” Mazin said. “And then the question is, ‘Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?’ That’s something that will be explored now and later.”

As far as “later” is concerned, Mazin also teased that a third (and perhaps even a fourth season) were highly likely: “I think it’s pretty likely that our story will extend past a season 3. How far past? I can’t say. And that’s not to say that there are not other stories that could be told, but this story is the one that Neil and I are telling.” Druckmann added: “We have a plan. We know what we need to do going forward, but we couldn’t tell you right now exactly how many episodes or how many seasons it would take to get there.”

The Last of Us season 2 hits HBO and Max in April.

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