The Last of Us RENEWED for season 2 trends now

HBO's latest hit series The Last of Us has been renewed for a second season, it has been confirmed.

The announcement comes after show achieved a record-breaking debut on the streaming service and cable network which has since grown to 22 million viewers - HBO's most-watched series debut in over a decade.

'I'm humbled, honored, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie's journey,' executive producer Neil Druckmann said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

'The collaboration with Craig Mazin, our incredible cast and crew, and HBO exceeded my already high expectations. Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two!'

The post-apocalyptic series - set 20 years after a global pandemic - marks the cable network's second-largest debut after House of the Dragon's historic 9.986M viewership last August.

Earlier this month, the showrunners said in a statement: 'Our focus was simply to make the best possible adaptation of this beloved story for as big an audience as we could.

'We are overjoyed to see how many fans, both old and new, have welcomed The Last of Us into their homes and their hearts.'

In it, Joel (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with transporting 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who's miraculously immune to the Cordyceps infection, out of a Boston quarantine zone all the way to the West Coast where a cure is being created.

The parasitic fungal infection - inspired by the real-life ophiocordyceps unilateralis - killed off 60% of the population and has four stages of infection, which increasingly causes humans to resemble zombie-like monsters that use echolocation.