Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet may be very different from what we're used to in Naughty Dog games. The studio's trademark has usually been cinematic, narrative-driven games, at least since Uncharted and, of course, The Last of Us.
However, MinnMax's Ben Hanson teased that he had heard from his sources that the studio's next project was being compared to something else. In an October 2024 podcast, he said:
I heard from somebody very in the know who worked on the game that they're like Jesus Christ... the tone was like you are all not ready for how amazing this is going to be... and the tone was (I'm not going to say the game that they referenced to compare it)... but they compared to a game with a lot of player freedom.
Back then, the game hadn't been unveiled yet. That happened a couple of months later at The Game Awards 2024 with a gorgeous debut trailer. Now that the dust has settled, in the latest episode of The MinnMax Show, Ben Hanson has confirmed exactly which game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet was being likened to:
I think it's fine to say it now: that game was Elden Ring that it was compared to back then. If I would have said 'Naughty Dog's next game is like Elden Ring' and then that reveal trailer came out, I feel like we would have been lit on fire. But now that idea of, okay, it's taking place on one planet, kind of uncovering the history of this world, you can kind of see a little more where they might be going with that.
Game Director Neil Druckmann has since provided a bit more context. Before the reveal, he admitted that the new game was fresh to the studio, and he was curious about the players' reactions. This certainly fits such a big change in the degree of player freedom compared to Naughty Dog's most recent games.
Druckmann confirmed as recently as last week that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet would be a lonely game for players, unlike Uncharted and The Last of Us, where the main characters were almost always accompanied by allies. This is another hint that MinnMax's report is correct.
Of course, many questions remain. Is this a full-fledged action RPG, then? Can players explore the world of Sempiria in whichever order they see fit? Naughty Dog will undoubtedly respond in due time, although the game creator himself has also warned the project is still some ways off, so we might have to wait a while before learning all those details.
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