Neil Druckmann, the director behind the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, has recently shed more light on Naughty Dog's highly anticipated new project, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. In a revealing interview with Alex Garland, the screenwriter of the iconic zombie film 28 Days Later, Druckmann discussed the game's development journey, which has been ongoing for four years.
Reflecting on past projects, Druckmann humorously noted, "We made a game, The Last of Us 2, we made certain creative decisions that got us a lot of hate. A lot of people love it, but a lot of people hate that game." Garland responded lightheartedly, "Who gives a shit?" Druckmann agreed and shared the team's playful shift in focus, saying, "But the joke is like, you know what, let's do something that people won't care as much about — let's make a game about faith and religion."
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet Screenshots
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Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet stars Jordan A. Mun as Tati Gabrielle and is set in an alternate historical timeline. The narrative revolves around a "pretty prominent religion" that has "changed and bastardized and evolved" over time. Players will control a bounty hunter who crash-lands on a mysterious planet, where all communication has ceased for centuries. The goal? To uncover the planet's history and find a way to escape its orbit—a feat not achieved in hundreds of years.
Druckmann elaborated on the game's unique setting, saying, "This whole religion takes place on this one planet, and then at one point, all communication stops... So many of the previous games we've done, there's always, like, an ally with you. I really want you to be lost in a place that you're really confused about what happened here, who are the people here, what was their history. And in order to get off this planet — again, no one has been heard from this planet for 600 years or so — if you ever have hoped to have a chance to get off, you have to figure out what happened here."
AnswerSee ResultsIn other news, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, showrunners for The Last of Us Season 2, have confirmed that "spores are back" following their absence in Season 1. At SXSW 2025, Druckmann teased an escalation in the number and types of infected, along with a new vector for the spread of the infection. He noted, "Season 1, we had this new thing that wasn’t in the game of these tendrils that spread, and that was one form. And then one shot you see in this trailer, there are things in the air."
Additionally, actress Kaitlyn Dever, who will play Abby in The Last of Us Season 2, discussed the challenges of her role and admitted to struggling with the online reactions to her character.
