The Game Awards 2024 was capped off by Sony’s Naughty Dog revealing a brand new IP that has been in development since 2020. Given the developer it goes without saying that it’ll be a PlayStation exclusive.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is the first new IP from Naughty Dog in nearly two decades. The studio has worked on nothing aside from The Last of Us and Uncharted, so it’s exciting to see them tackling something new and a little less depressing than The Last of Us.
The trailer leans into a retro sci-fi vibe not altogether dissimilar to Guardians of the Galaxy. In fact, like Star Lord leading character Jordan seems to have a thing for holding onto nostalgic items; she’s watching 80’s anime, her ship has been branded Porsche, she has a Sony CD player and is wearing Adidas shoes. It’s…well, the trailer does lay it on a bit thick, coming across more like ad placements than part of who Jordan is, but hopefully the full game will make better use of it.
“Intergalactic stars our newest protagonist, Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago” reads the official blog post. “In fact, anyone who’s flown to it hoping to unravel its mysterious past was never heard from again. Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.”
I found it slightly funny that a game titled Intergalactic seems to be about being stranded on a single planet. But maybe we will get to visit a few more places?
The debut trailer didn’t really do much for me, I have to admit. The nostalgic sci-fi vibe has become overplayed in recent years and the trailer doesn’t give us much of an idea of what the game will really be, or even do a great job of setting up the story or vibe. However, Naughty Dog are an excellent studio and I’m excited to see them do something that isn’t The Last of Us, even if I was kind of hoping they’d go even crazier and return to their cartoony Jak & Daxter and Crash Bandicoot days.