After years of silence, Naughty Dog finally announced its next game,Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet,at The Game Awards 2024. Developed by the team behind classic PlayStation franchises likeUncharted,The Last of Us, andJak & Daxter,Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophetis a sci-fi action-adventure game with a retrofuturistic twist. It takes place in an alternate universe thousands of years into the future, one in which interplanetary space travel was invented in the 1980s. From what was shown in its reveal trailer, the game appears to have a very strong retrofuturistic aesthetic, much likeFar Cry 3: Blood DragonorCyberpunk 2077.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophetis thefirst new IP from Naughty Dog in over 10 years, and it’s been in development since 2020, though it still doesn’t have a release window. Although PlayStation is currently keeping most details about the game under wraps, it seems to have a lot of potential, at least from a story perspective.Intergalactic’s plot revolves around a seasoned bounty hunter named Jordan A. Mun who, after pursuing a criminal syndicate dubbed the Five Aces, gets trapped on a remote, robot-inhabited planet called Sempiria and must fight for survival. The gameplay in Naughty Dog’s upcoming game, however, is shrouded in mystery.
Thereveal trailer forIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, while well-done in its own right, was sorely lacking in the gameplay department. Although the footage of the game was completely in-engine, it was almost entirely focused on introducing viewers to Jordan instead of giving details about the game itself. In fact, there were only a few seconds of proper gameplay in the entire four-minute teaser. Jordan is seen facing off against a giant, hostile robot at the very end of the trailer, but that’s about it; the footage abruptly ends before anything significant is shown.
Intergalactic’s Gameplay May Be Different Compared to Previous Naughty Dog Games
Judging by the brief snippet of gameplay that’s been revealed so far, it looks likeIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophetdiffers significantly from previous Naughty Dog games in terms of combat. Most ofNaughty Dogs' past effortshave fallen under the third-person shooter category.UnchartedandThe Last of Us, for example, featured a lot of ranged combat and had dynamic cover systems.Intergalactic, on the other hand, seems to place a greater emphasis on melee weaponry. In both the game’s cover art and its reveal trailer, Jordan is shown wielding what appears to be a red energy sword, which is presumably going to be the primary weapon she uses during combat. The game will probably still have guns and other ranged weapons, but perhaps they won’t be as prominent as in Naughty Dog’s other works.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet’s gameplay systems are also going to be very intricate, at least according to recent rumors. A few months ago, a podcast host on the Minmaxx Show alleged that they’d heard from a source of theirs thatNaughty Dog’s next gamewould feature a “lot of player freedom.” This claim was somewhat corroborated by a statement fromIntergalacticdirector Neil Druckmann, who said inan official PlayStation Blog articlethat the upcoming game would have the “deepest gameplay in Naughty Dog’s history” and would push the company’s learnings “beyond anything” it had done before.
Intergalactic Could Be Naughty Dog’s Best-Playing Game Yet, If it Lives Up to Expectations
Naughty Dog’s games are often lauded for having some of thebest third-person combaton the market. As such, ifIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophetdoes take the company’s tried-and-true gameplay formula to the next level, it may end up becoming a shining example of the action-adventure game genre.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet
WHERE TO PLAY
Intergalactic: The Heretic Propher follows Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago. In fact, anyone who’s flown to it hoping to unravel its mysterious past was never heard from again. Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.
