An announcement for The Last of Us 2 could drop sooner than expected, industry insider ‘Shinobi602’ has hinted in a post on NeoGAF (via ThisGenGaming).

The tipster was posting in response to some fan artwork for the much-anticipated horror sequel, which simply read, ‘Maybe you don’t have to wait that long’ in regards to an official announcement.

Now, this is by no means outright confirmation that we’ll see the game revealed in the not-too-distant future, but as we’ve said before, Shinobi does have a brilliant track record for his game-related gossip, so we’re hoping he’s on the ball with this one. Having said that, The Last of Us 2 release date probably won’t be confirmed for quite some time if it is indeed in the pipeline.

Related – The Last of Us 2: Everything you need to know

The Last of Us 2 has been rumored for well over a year now, although there’s conflicting reports on whether or not Naughty Dog is actually working on it. Initially, voice actor Troy Baker said that the California studio was not developing a follow-up, although later on Naughty Dog admitted it was exploring ideas that were later put on ice as it focused on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

Nolan North later seemingly confirmed The Last of Us 2 was indeed in the works, although Sony countered this by stating, although it would love to see a sequel, the project was not in currently in production at the time. The last we heard, Naughty Dog said it would revisit prototypes for The Last of Us 2 once it wrapped up on Uncharted 4’s DLC support.

There’s good news too, with Ashley Johnson, who voiced Ellie in the original game, expressed her interest in reprising her role in a potential sequel. Also, we know that Naughty Dog has at least one more game in the works for PS4; could The Last of Us 2 be one of them? It’s certainly possible.

Read our review of The Last of Us Remastered.