In an interesting one-on-one chat with film director Alex Garland (Civil War, Dread, Former Masina, Abandoned, 28 days later), Naughty Dog Game Director and Designer Neil Druckman announced the studio’s next sci-fi project, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, at Game Awards 2024.
Druckman said faith and religion were heavy themes that Naughty Dog spent a lot of time on a full-blown timeline that took writers years to fine-tune. Additionally, the previous Naughty Dog Games, like Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, The Last of Us, the protagonist Jordan A. Mun (played by Tati Gabrielle), and, in turn, the players become lonely.
It will be two,000 years in another future that deviates from the late 1980s. We spent years just thinking about that timeline. It’s interesting. I joked with the team. In our final part II, we made certain creative decisions that brought us so much hatred. Many people love it, but many people hate the game. So, what do you know, let’s do things that people don’t care so much. Create a game about faith and religion.
This alternative history timeline has deviated from the timeline, and this new religion has become quite visible, and it has been spent years just building this religion, from the original prophet to how it changes and sometimes evolves assassins. This whole religion takes place on this one planet, and then at some point, all communications cease from this planet. Intergalactic: Heresy Prophet, you play the grace hunter chasing her grace, and she crashes land on this planet. I really wanted to make a game about faith and religion, but I also wanted to just be alone.
Many of the previous games we’ve played have always been with you and you’re talking to them. I want you to get really lost in a place where you are really confused about what happened here, the people here, what their history was. And to descend this planet, once again, no one has heard from this planet for 600 years, so if you have the chance to descend, you need to figure out what happened here.
Druckman also admits that the developers still have a “way to go,” suggesting that it may take some time before gamers actually play it. He added that he doesn’t know exactly what’s between the galaxies. The heretical prophet will look like its final incarnation.
Certainly the studio sounds like an all-in, but after Druckman’s recent comments, it’s that our final game may not be there anymore.
