According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, the new sci-fi intellectual property in development at Naughty Dog, won't be released before 2027. The comment was prompted by CD Projekt RED's confirmation to investors that The Witcher IV wouldn't launch before the end of 2026.
On the ResetEra forum, users recalled that Schreier had talked about both games (which were shown for the first time at The Game Awards 2024 in December) as being quite early in the development phase and relatively far from launch. Schreier himself then chimed in with a new post:
I'm pretty sure I said they were both going to be very early teases. Neither of those games will be out next year.
Truthfully, while we didn't have any dates for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Game Director Neil Druckmann recently hinted that fans would have to wait quite some time:
We still have a ways to go, but I'm kind of very excited to see... Again, these things are so complex and big and there's so many people involved. It's like, I still don't know exactly what this thing's gonna look like at the end. It's like, I have a theory, I have an idea, but it's still evolving and changing as we are making it.
If Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet launched in 2027, it would be seven years since the launch of Naughty Dog's previous game, The Last of Us Part II. That's a very long time between releases, but it should be noted that Naughty Dog had nearly completed The Last of Us Online before deciding to cancel it after they realized (with Bungie's input) that the game's post-launch support would have absorbed much of the studio's efforts for years to come. It is quite likely that if The Last of Us Online was not canceled, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet would have been postponed even further away.
Interestingly, The Witcher IV will also be the studio's next full game release after Cyberpunk 2077's late 2020 debut. CD Projekt RED did not cancel a game in between, but they were busy improving Cyberpunk 2077 and releasing the excellent Phantom Liberty expansion. Moreover, the studio has transitioned from its in-house RED Engine to Unreal Engine 5.
All this is to say there are reasons why these games are taking so long. Nonetheless, it's becoming apparent that the largest triple-A games can now take between five and seven years to complete, which makes it all the more challenging to invest in them, as failure would be catastrophic to a studio after spending so much time and resources.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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