Neil Druckmann Aims for 'Lost and Confused' Feel in Naughty Dog's New Game

Neil Druckmann, the director behind the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, has recently shared intriguing details about Naughty Dog's upcoming project, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. In a candid interview with Alex Garland, the writer of the zombie movie 28 Days Later, Druckmann discussed the game's development, which has been underway for four years.

Reflecting on the mixed reception of The Last of Us 2, Druckmann humorously remarked, "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, stating, "Exactly. 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 game revolves around a "pretty prominent religion" that has "changed and bastardized and evolved" over time. Players will follow Jordan, a bounty hunter, who crash-lands on a mysterious planet where all communication has ceased for centuries. The challenge for Jordan is to unravel the planet's secrets and be the first to escape its orbit in hundreds of years.

Druckmann elaborated on the game's setting, saying, "This whole religion takes place on this one planet, and then at one point, all communication stops. And you're playing a bounty hunter that's chasing her bounty, and she crash lands on this planet. 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."

In other news, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, showrunners for The Last of Us Season 2, confirmed that "spores are back" after their absence in Season 1. At SXSW 2025, Druckmann teased an escalation in the number and types of infected, as well as the vectors of 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 discussed her role as Abby in The Last of Us Season 2, admitting she struggles not to check online reactions to her performance.