Merced joins a growing list of actors confirmed for season 2 of the show, including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby and Young Mazino as Jesse.
Mazino is nominated for an award in this year's Emmys for his role as Paul Cho in the Netflix series Beef.
The 27-year old actress is best known for her roles in Justified, Last Man Standing, and Dopesick, among others.
The series was nominated for 19 awards at the Creative Arts Emmys, and is also nominated for an additional 5 at the Primetime Emmys.
The studio has ended development on the multiplayer title, choosing instead to focus on developing single player games.
"At this point it’s not something that has begun in any fashion, at least, not that I know of," says Jeffrey Pierce, who plays Tommy.
Kaitlyn Dever, best known for her roles in Unbelievable and Dopesick (among others), is reportedly in talks to play Abby.
Vinit Agarwal, game director on the multiplayer project, says he is still working on it.
Production on the show's second season, which was officially greenlit earlier this year, will begin in early 2024.
The LinkedIn profile for former associate game designer at Naughty Dog, Ian Blake, indicates that The Last of Us' multiplayer title would feature large player counts.
Reports of layoffs and the multiplayer project being "on ice" have raised concerns about its future and Sony's live-service push.
His departure follows recent reports of the project having been put "on ice" amidst layoffs at Naughty Dog.
It was reported in May that Sony had scaled back the project's development team after an internal reassessment.
Neil Druckmann can't talk about "the next game at Naughty Dog" right now. "My comms director over there will slaughter me."
It was recently reported that Sony has scaled back Naughty Dog's multiplayer The Last of Us project.
A new report claims that though the game is still in development, many members of its development team have been moved to other projects.
Naughty Dog says it's looking forward to "sharing more soon" on the multiplayer title and its new single player game.
Going bigger might not necessarily be better for these franchises.
For one reason or another, these games just kept pulling us back toward them.
As per Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on the show, shooting for the second season will begin at the end of this year.
