Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

• 1. Introduction

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  Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is an upcoming action-adventure game from the studio Naughty Dog, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. Its first trailer showed a bounty hunter watching anime, listening to 1980s music on a Sony CD player, flying a Porsche spaceship and wearing Adidas sneakers. Creative director Neil Druckmann said the footage "doesn't even scratch the surface" of the game. It is Naughty Dog's first original property since The Last of Us in 2013.

  Who is this bounty hunter, and why does her future look so much like the 1980s? What does a studio known for The Last of Us do when it steps away from grounded realism? And how do you build an entire game around the idea of faith?

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• 2. Stranded on Sempiria

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  Sempiria is a remote planet that has been cut off from outside contact for over 600 years, and in all that time no one has managed to leave it. Veteran bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun becomes stranded there while tracking a criminal syndicate known as the "Five Aces".

  The game takes place around two thousand years in the future, in an alternate universe where advanced space travel already existed by 1986. As Jordan tries to escape, she learns about the history of Sempiria and its people. Along the way she fights hostile robots armed with blades.

  Druckmann has summed up the idea beneath all of this in a single question.

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• 3. Faith and Anime

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  "What happens when you put your faith in different institutions" is how Druckmann describes the question the story explores. To carry it, the team centered the game on a fictional religion. They wrote thousands of years of history for Sempiria's religion, and they wrote the narrative outline and concepts long before settling specific story elements, because the team was busy prototyping gameplay.

  The science fiction elements take inspiration from several anime, including Akira from 1988 and Cowboy Bebop from 1998. The developers also drew on techniques they had learned while making Uncharted and The Last of Us. They wanted to expand the gameplay and use action and genre to "hide" a personal, philosophical story, free from the constraints of grounded reality. Druckmann felt that this lack of groundedness made science fiction the harder genre to write.

  The player is meant to feel lost and alone on Sempiria. Part of that comes from the absence of non-playable allies, who are a familiar feature of other Naughty Dog games.

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• 4. A 250-Person Effort

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  Naughty Dog began developing the game for the PlayStation 5 in 2020, after the release of The Last of Us Part II. Druckmann leads the 250-person team as creative director and writer. Matthew Gallant and Kurt Margenau are the game directors, and Claire Carré is the narrative director. The game is intended to start a new franchise. Druckmann considers it the studio's most expansive and ambitious project, and likely its most expensive. The score comes from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and it is Reznor's first full video game soundtrack since Quake in 1996.

  At Summer Game Fest in June 2022, Druckmann revealed that he was working on a new game. He later said that he was assembling a writers' room "structured more like a TV show" than the ones on Naughty Dog's previous projects.

  In 2023, the studio decided to cancel The Last of Us Online, partly so that it would not withhold resources from this game. Druckmann was also working on the television adaptation of The Last of Us. He felt that Gallant, Margenau and Carré "stepped up" so that he could do so. In July 2025, ahead of the show's third season, he stepped away from his creative duties on the series to focus on Intergalactic.

  The autumn of 2025 brought a demanding internal deadline, which began in late October.

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• 5. Casting Jordan

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  Tati Gabrielle plays Jordan, and she had already appeared in two adaptations of Naughty Dog franchises. One was the 2022 film Uncharted, and the other was the second season of The Last of Us in 2025. Druckmann pitched her the story after she was cast in the television series. She auditioned alongside Troy Baker. Druckmann considered her a standout and compared her audition to Ashley Johnson's for Ellie in The Last of Us.

  Gabrielle describes herself as a spiritual person, and the game's focus on faith drew her to it. She felt it represented "such a different side of Naughty Dog".

  Her performance in turn shaped how Jordan was written, including the character's arc. Druckmann felt that she added a "charm" and "bad-ass-ness" to the role.

  Even Jordan's name carries a private joke. Her initials, J.A.M., refer to JAM Software, the name Naughty Dog once went by.

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• 6. A Familiar Ensemble

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  Halley Gross, who co-wrote The Last of Us Part II, plays AJ, Jordan's agent. The Five Aces include Colin Graves, played by Kumail Nanjiani, along with other members played by Tony Dalton, Ashley Scott and Stephen A. Chang in leading roles. Scott played Maria in The Last of Us and its sequel, and Chang played Jesse in Part II.

  Tony Dalton was cast after appearing in an episode of The Last of Us television series directed by Druckmann. Druckmann showed him parts of the game over Zoom and offered him the role immediately. It is Dalton's first video game, and he found the performance capture process unique and impressive.

  Troy Baker and Merle Dandridge are also in the cast, in roles that have not been disclosed. Druckmann enjoyed working with Baker again after a gap of five years since Baker played Joel in Part II. Dandridge previously portrayed Marlene in both The Last of Us games and the television series. She also played Evelyn in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in 2016.

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• 7. The Crunch Question

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  After finishing The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog pledged to address its crunch culture on its next game. From late October to mid-December 2025, staff were asked to work at least eight extra hours per week, though not more than 60 hours in total. They were also asked to return to the office five days a week, up from three. The aim was to complete an internal demo for review by the publisher, Sony Interactive Entertainment.

  The long hours were not new to that autumn. Some employees had also worked long hours to finish the game's first trailer.

  That trailer carried a song that Druckmann chose with unusual care, and it was about faith.

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• 8. Reveal and Release Window

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  Sony trademarked the title Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet in February 2024. Naughty Dog then revealed the game at the Game Awards on the 12th of December 2024, alongside its first trailer. For that trailer, Druckmann spent time searching for a 1980s song about faith. He eventually chose "It's a Sin" by the Pet Shop Boys.

  Several studios approached Naughty Dog after the trailer to discuss adaptations and partnerships. Druckmann preferred to focus on the game itself before expanding its universe.

  In March 2025, Druckmann said the team "still have a ways to go" with development. According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, the game is internally scheduled for mid-2027.

  On the 3rd of April 2025, Jordan's jacket was added as a skin for Ellie in The Last of Us Part II Remastered. It let players of an older game wear a piece of Jordan's outfit well before that internal target of mid-2027.

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