At The Game Awards, Naughty Dog introduced its next big game, and it’s far different than anything it’s done before. The game is called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and appears to be set in a far-flung but still very grounded science-fiction future.
The cinematic trailer showed the heroic bounty hunter, Jordan A. Mun played by Tatiana Gabrielle, receiving a call from a dispatcher and taking a job to the dangerous planet Sempiria. She dismisses concerns about people going there and never returning as superstition, and casts caution to the wind. We then see her taking off in her Porsche spaceship, and confronting a hulking robotic menace. Though the game didn’t show combat or other gameplay footage, host Geoff Keighley noted it was all rendered in-engine.
In a separate post from Naughty Dog published alongside the debut, the studio revealed that it has been working on this project since 2020. The post notes that Jordan does in fact become stranded on Sempiria, and her story involves her attempts to be the first to escape the cursed planet in more than 600 years. The game is being scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and it sure looks like Kumail Nanjiani will be in it.
This marks Naughty Dog’s first game since 2020’s The Last of Us Part II. Since then, however, things have remained hectic for the studio, even outside of this project. In 2023, The Last of Us premiered on HBO as a live-action adaptation of the first game. The second season is scheduled to debut in 2025 and is said to adapt some, but not all, of the video game sequel’s story, with a future season expected to further the story from there.
Originally, Naughty Dog was working on a multiplayer spin-off based on The Last of Us’ Factions mode. The Last of Us Online was going to be a PvP game that would move the single-player’s atmosphere and gritty combat into a multiplayer experience with live-service elements. The game was canceled two years ago and Naughty Dog said it would be staying focused on single-player games.