Just a few hours ago the 10th edition of the Game Awards 2024 ended, which took place like every year in Los Angeles. A ceremony which took place last night from 1:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. French time and which I covered in real time on my social networks. A ceremony which crowned Astro Bot as GOTY 2024 and which allowed us to see Nicolas Doucet on the verge of tears, it was very touching and his speech was very moving too. But the Game Awards also means numerous announcements and other World Premieres and this year, we were particularly spoiled. But among all these announcements, we were able to discover the new game from Naughty Dog studios, with Neil Druckmann at the helm. It’s called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, it will be a game with a sci-fi atmosphere, developed especially for the PS5. We should have been hyped, we should have been ecstatic, but for the past few hours, it’s been a bit of the opposite happening. The game was heavily criticized and disliked on YouTube. What exactly is happening? We’ll try to see things more clearly…
It’s been 4 years, four long years since we last heard from the Naughty Dog studio, since their last game, The Last of Us Part 2 was released in 2020, on PS4, in full confinement. There is no point going back to this great game, this masterpiece I would even say, which proves that Naughty Dog is one of the biggest studios in the world. So obviously, when a new game is announced, we hold our breath. Strong rumors have been circulating for a few days about Naughty Dog’s presence at the Game Awards ceremony and it turns out that these rumors were right. It was at the very end of the evening that the studio decided to lift the veil on its new game, and even more, its new franchise, the fifth after Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Uncharted and The Last of Us. name ? Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and as we can see, the story will take place in space and on hostile planets at the edge of the galaxy. A very different setting from what the creators of Uncharted and The Last of Us had accustomed us to until now.
80’S VIBES
For the moment, Naughty Dog is trying to keep a lot of things about the story secret, and that’s normal, but we do know that Intergalactic features Jordan A. Mun, a bounty hunter (played by Tati Gabrielle) who finds himself stranded on Sempiria, a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe died out hundreds of years ago. In fact, everyone who went there in the hope of uncovering its mysterious past was never heard from again. Jordan will have to use all her skills and intelligence if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave orbit. That’s the pitch of the story. Naughty Dog explains that the game was built on the same traditions that the studio has employed since its inception, namely providing an emotional, character-driven epic journey. If the narration will have an important part in the game, the gameplay will on the other hand be the number one objective of the studio, with the added experience that has been acquired in recent years. Jordan is played Tati Gabrielle, who we saw in the film Uncharted in the role of Jo Braddock (a failed version of Nadine Ross) and we will see her in the cinema in 2025 in the role of Jade in the film Mortal Kombat 2 and that of Nora in Season 2 of the HBO series The Last of Us. We can say it, Tati Gabrielle already has her entries into the Naughty Dog family.
Another actor will be at his side, Kumail Nanjiani, who we saw in The Eternals, the last Ghostbusters Frozen Empire or in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, but for the moment, we know nothing about his character. There’s a chance that his character is a cool guy, a little relaxed, limited to laughing on duty, because that’s a bit of what he’s asked to do every time in the cinema. But it’s not impossible that Neil Druckmann gave him a role against the grain, you never know… In any case, Neil Druckmann took the opportunity to announce that the music of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has was directed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The game has been in development for 4 years, since 2020, and it is the first title produced specifically for the PS5. Of course, at this point, no release date has been communicated.
BETWEEN DISLIKES AND ZERO HYPE CAN WE READ…
So far so good, it’s the new game from Naughty Dog, which has finally been offering a new franchise for a long time, we should all get out the champagne and the party favors… Except that since its announcement, for a few hours, it The opposite effect occurs. On social networks, people are not very excited about the proposition, and what comes up quite often is that the game does not generate real hype, even among fans of the studio. Many people are quite disappointed with the science fiction theme offered by the game, far from the studio’s DNA no doubt, not to mention that for others, it feels like they have already seen this game 1000 times. I even read comments saying that if it wasn’t for the Naughty Dog logo, the announcement of the game would have already been forgotten. And it is true that when we look at the reactions of the people in the Game Awards room, the excitement is less noticeable. It lacks that ‘wow’ effect that Naughty Dog has always been able to generate in each of its games. Of course, it is still too early to draw conclusions and we can trust the studio, its know-how, but we must say things as they are, the enthusiasm is less perceptible than for their previous project .
Worse, taking a look under the video, both on the Naughty Dog account and that of PlayStation on YouTube, is a cold shower. 27,000 dislikes versus 24,000 on the PlayStation channel, 20,000 dislikes versus 19,000 likes on the Naughty Dog channel and 3,000 dislikes versus 1,100 likes on the Game Awards channel, the observation is the same, people are not satisfied with the game. To the point where Naughty Dog deactivated comments on its YouTube channel, which is not the case elsewhere. People are not convinced and the very visible Porsche and Adidas product placements have not helped the game with a very demanding audience today… And since we are also in the era of the woke anti -woke, I’ll let you imagine the content of the exchanges, with many people who believe that the studio is completely corrupted by DEI, diversity, equity, inclusiveness, something that Naught Dog had already faced with The Last of Us 2 at the era. Some find that the studio is forcing it too much, with a character who looks too much like Lev in The Last of Us 2, who I remind you was a trans character, that the name chosen, Jordan, is a mixed name and which suggests certain things…
For the moment, this is not the panacea for Intergalactic which will have to double its efforts to convince the players. But knowing Naughty Dog, its know-how, its talent and above all its pedigree, at Jeuxactu, we are convinced that we will be entitled to a quality game, especially in terms of narrative, gameplay and surprises. Certainly the hype is not at its peak, certainly the wow effect is not there (yet), but let’s not bury the game too quickly because we must remember that this is a work by Naughty Dog, and more precisely Neil Druckmann and Kurt Margenau as Game Director who are in charge, and who have already proven to us how talented they are…
