A game on religion and loneliness, Neil

While the whole planet is barely recovering from the latest trailer of Death Stranding 2, on the side of Naughty Dog, we continue to develop the universe of their next game, the necessarily long awaited intergalactic the heretic prophet of which we saw the first trailer at the Game Awards 2024 ceremony. If the game has already caused a lot of ink on social networks, Creation habits at Naughty Dog. Indeed, in a Sony podcast, Creator to Creator, in which he exchanges with Alex Garland (screenwriter of 28 days later and director of Ex machina,, Annihilation And Civil war) About the creative process,, Neil Druckmann gives some crisp details on Intergalactic The Heretic Prophet. We learn in particular that one of the themes addressed in the game is none other than solitude, enough to change the habits of the Californian studio, hitherto accustomed to making us games that stage duets of characters. From Jak & Daxter to The Last of Us, via Uncharted, the hero of each license is always accompanied by a sidekick, with which he often does the conversation. This will not be the case in Intergalactic The Heretic Prophet, since Jordan will have to live alone on a planet cut off from the rest of the galaxy for almost 600 years.

“In most of our previous games, there is always a kind of ally with you. This time, I really want you to feel lost in a place that is completely unknown to you and where you will be completely delivered to yourself. Who are the people here, what was their story? Everything is to be discovered. The question of how to leave this planet is also at the heart of history since again, no communication has been made with this planet for about 600 years. To leave this place, you will have to understand what happened here. “

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijuab499pva

We recall that the story of Intergalactic will make us play a bonus hunter, Jordan, who will therefore find himself stuck on this planet where we will have to defeat solitude and fight with blunder robots. Neil Druckmann, however, has added another component that risks asserting him the lightning of his detractors, since faith and religion will be the other two themes of the game. Confessions made to Alex Garland, after having explained that The Last of Us Part 2 is a game which is both loved as hated.

“We have created a game, The Last of Us 2, and we made certain creative decisions that have earned us a lot of hatred. Many people like it, but many people hate it“Said Neil Druckmann, to which Alex Garland replied: “We don’t care, right?” “Exactly“Added Druckmann. “I am kidding a lot about this with the team and the joke that is: you know what, let’s do something that people will care less, let’s play a game on faith and religion. Enough to relaunch the debates with the detractors of Neil Druckmann who consider him a pro-Israeli and even accuse him of making allusions in these games. He now seems armored against these cohorts of fans ready to do battle.

Finally, this very interesting exchange of more than 50 min with these two creatives also makes it possible to know that Naught Dog has hugely worked on the timeline and it is now acted, Heretic will take place in an anachronistic future, 2000 years after having diverged from the 80s. The reason for which we see references to the 80’s atmosphere, while offering ultra advanced technologies. The Naughty Dog studio has probably spent years designing this special chronology, and we are really looking forward to discovering it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4A_LP47UBS