The release date for the upcoming The Last of Us series on HBO has accidentally been revealed on the HBO Max app to be January 15, 2023.

#TheLastOfUs will premiere on January 15 according to HBO Max! pic.twitter.com/aT6LB4IJ9s

— The Last of Us Media (@TLOUMedia) November 1, 2022

HBO chief Casey Bloys had hinted earlier this year the series would be in good shape to be released in the first half of 2023 to be eligible for next year’s Emmys, but probably not too many people expected it to be this soon. In terms of scheduling, though, it makes sense. The first teaser for Succession season 4 revealed recently that it is targeting a spring 2023 release, and given the fact that the fourth season started shooting after The Last of Us wrapped production, it made sense the latter would be up first, and still leave room for Succession to air its 10-episode season in full before May 31.

The platform will probably follow the same strategy they used this year with House of the Dragon and The White Lotus, or what they did back in 2019 with Game of Thrones and Chernobyl, by airing two highly-anticipated series back-to-back, but coming in hot with the first one to keep viewers hooked to HBO and HBO Max. So far, it’s worked great for The White Lotus, which premiered its second season a week after the House of the Dragon finale to very strong ratings. According to HBO, the season 2 premiere of The White Lotus tallied just over 1.5 million viewers in the U.S. on Sunday night across HBO Max and linear telecasts. Total cross-platform viewing was up 63% vs. the season 1 premiere night (944k) and up 35% compared to the average debut night audience for each episode across season 1 (1.1M).

The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian) as Joel and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones, His Dark Materials) as Ellie. Also joining the cast are Gabriel Luna (True Detective) as Joel’s younger brother and former soldier, Tommy; Merle Dandridge (The Last of Us video games, The Flight Attendant) as resistance leader Marlene; and Anna Torv (Fringe) as Tess, a smuggler and fellow hardened survivor. The series will guest star Nico Parker (The Third Day) as Sarah, Joel’s 14-year old daughter; Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus) and Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) as Frank and Bill, two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town; Storm Reid (Euphoria) as Riley, an orphan in Boston; and Jeffrey Pierce (The Last of Us video games) as Perry, a rebel in a quarantine zone.

The series has been written and executive produced by Craig Mazin (HBO’s Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann, of The Last of Us and Uncharted video game franchises.

Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.