Naughty Dog’s next title revealed at The Game Awards, and it’s not a Last of Us

A new game from Naughty Dog studios called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is on the way, announced at this year’s Game Awards. The game is set in a sci-fi universe, and the trailer shows a character going about their day, watching a little old school anime, and putting on a pet shop record before setting off on space adventure. The universe looks a lot less high-tech and polished than something in the Star Wars universe; instead of sleek interfaces, the protagonist uses CRT-style monitors, old school tech and keyboards, and other clunky elements that make the protagonist’s ship look functional over fancy.

Naughty Dog, a Sony-owned studio, is known for its elaborate adventure games with cinematic principles, like the Last of Us and Uncharted series. Troy Baker, who played Joel in The Last of Us games, is signed on to play the protagonist of this new project. The game will also be helmed by Neil Druckmann, who was the creative director on The Last of Us games and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The trailer showed off part of the story, which follows bounty hunter Jordan Munn as she pursues a criminal syndicate named The Five Aces. In the pursuit of one of the Aces, Jordan ends up stranded on a distant planet with some very hostile looking robots.

It’s been a strange few years for Naughty Dog, where work has focused on the studio’s existing catalog of games. The Last of Us Part 1 was remastered along with its sequel, with both games getting higher graphical fidelity for the PlayStation 5. Naughty Dog was previously invested in an online multiplayer mode for the post-apocalyptic franchise, but the project was cancelled in December 2023.

Druckmann calls the game “our wildest, most creative story yet” in a post on the Naughty Dog site, and shares that the game has been in development since 2020. There’s no news on launch dates or platforms, but it’ll be interesting to see how Intergalactic shapes up, and where that heretic prophet comes into play.