Naughty Dog’s upcoming game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, might be a mouthful, but studio head Neil Druckmann has come forward to shed light on how its name links to the title’s overarching plot, which is set to place a heavy emphasis on faith and religion.
During an interview with 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland, Druckmann discussed the game’s development process, which he explained was four years in the making. Undeterred by the controversial decisions regarding the plot of 2020’s The Last of Us Part II, it seems the team has decided to double down despite the backlash, with Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet set to have a “pretty prominent” focus on religion.
“I joke about this with the team. We made a game, The Last of Us 2, we made certain creative decisions that got us a lot of hate. A lot of people love it, but a lot of people hate that game,” Druckmann explained, “but the joke is like, you know what, let’s do something that people won’t care as much about — let’s make a game about faith and religion.”
Druckmann also added that apart from religion being of strong significance to the game’s story, its goal was to imbue a sense of uncertainty or even confusion among players too, intentionally making them feel trapped and alone in an unfamiliar environment. “So many of the previous games we’ve done, there’s always, like, an ally with you,” he added, “I really want [players] to be lost in a place that [they’re] really confused about what happened here, who are the people here, what was their history. And in order to get off this planet — again, no one has been heard from this planet for 600 years or so — if [players] ever have hoped to have a chance to get off, [they] have to figure out what happened here.”
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which stars Jordan A. Mun as protagonist Tati Gabrielle, will take place in an alternate historical timeline that split from the current reality in the 1980s. Due to this fracture in time, a new religion was formed on one planet, and in the course of the 2,000 years that followed, leading to the events of the game, saw a massive expansion that “bastardised and evolved” it into something more like a cult. While chasing a bounty, Gabrielle crash lands on said planet, which had previously ceased all communication with the rest of the galaxy, with the goal of the game being to uncover the truths behind this mysterious religion and be the first person in centuries to escape unscathed.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is still deep in development for the PS5, and thus doesn’t have a release window yet.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
