It appears that Naughty Dog’s new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, is reusing some ideas from a canceled version of Jak 4. Naughty Dog is one of the most prolific studios in gaming having gotten its start with Crash Bandicoot. The platformer was a seminal PS1 title and helped put the studio on the map before transitioning to another sort of family friendly series known as Jak & Daxter. Eventually, Naughty Dog began to mature and take on more adult stories. Uncharted was the start of that, but still appealed to younger audiences, but would eventually embrace its darkest story yet in The Last of Us franchise.
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While Uncharted and The Last of Us are Naughty Dog’s golden goose eggs, some longtime fans have longed for a return to its roots. Jak 4 was in the works at one point with Naughty Dog devising into two teams during Uncharted 3‘s development. One team worked on Nathan Drake’s next adventure while the other went to try and make Jak 4. Unfortunately, the team realized the direction they were going in wasn’t working and felt it would be best to shelve the project and work on a new IP, The Last of Us. Naughty Dog appears to be done with Jak and Daxter for good, but that doesn’t mean it can’t take inspiration from it.
After a decade of nothing but Uncharted and The Last of Us, Naughty Dog announced it is doing something entirely new at The Game Awards this past week. The studio announced they’ve spent the last four years developing a new sci-fi franchise called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The game will focus on a bounty hunter as she partakes on a dangerous quest on a desolate planet. It looks really interesting and different from what Naughty Dog has done before and has an emphasis on melee combat rather than gunplay.
While there will probably still be guns, the focus on a sword in the reveal trailer definitely suggests Naughty Dog isn’t making just another third-person shooter. Jak & Daxter fan page @eco_community on Twitter was quick to notice a connection between Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Jak 4. The end of the reveal trailer features a giant, formidable robot that is fighting our protagonist. That robot bares a striking resemblance to the design of another robot seen in concept art for Jak 4. Of course, it could be nothing more than a total coincidence, but it would be surprising if it was.
Jak 4 was going in a more realistic sci-fi direction and it would make sense if Naughty Dog decided to lift from the overall look and feel of Jak 4 to build something new. Of course, this is pure speculation, but video games are expensive and take a long time to make. If you have something that you’ve already made and can reuse it, it’s a smart economical decision.
As of right now, we have no idea when Intergalactic is releasing. While one would hope for a 2025 release, Intergalactic wouldn’t have started development until after June 2020 and would’ve started right in the midst of the pandemic when Naughty Dog was working from home. That would’ve likely posed all kinds of production challenges that may have slowed the game down. Naughty Dog is also confirmed to be working on The Last of Us Part 3. Either way, it’s shaping up quite nicely and is confirmed to come to PS5 in the future. It seems unlikely it will release next year, especially with the fall already looking quite busy with the planned release of Grand Theft Auto VI.
It’s likely Naughty Dog will let Rockstar have its moment and take the extra time to develop Intergalactic for a 2026 release. Hopefully, the game won’t go dark for too long and PlayStation will give us plenty of meaty looks at the game leading up to its eventual release, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. So far, there’s been an intense backlash to Intergalactic online due to the look of its protagonist, prompting Naughty Dog to turn off comments on the trailer on YouTube. Whether that will impact the game’s release is unknown.
