Neil Druckmann Aims to Make Players Feel 'Lost and Confused' with Naughty Dog's New Game

Neil Druckmann, the director behind the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, has recently shed light on Naughty Dog's next ambitious project, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. In a revealing interview with Alex Garland, the mastermind behind the zombie thriller 28 Days Later, Druckmann discussed the four-year journey of developing this new game. He humorously reflected on the polarizing reception of The Last of Us 2, stating, "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's light-hearted response, "Who gives a shit?" prompted Druckmann to share the team's playful approach to their new project: "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 introduces players to an alternate historical timeline, featuring a "pretty prominent religion" that has evolved significantly over time. The game stars Jordan A. Mun as Tati Gabrielle, who plays a bounty hunter crash-landing on a mysterious planet. This planet is the sole domain of the religion in question, and all communication with it ceased centuries ago. Druckmann teased, "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."

Druckmann emphasized the game's unique approach to storytelling, aiming to immerse players in a world where they must unravel the planet's history to escape its orbit. "So many of the previous games we've done, there's always, like, an ally with you," he said. "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, the showrunners for The Last of Us Season 2, have confirmed that "spores are back" after their absence in Season 1. At SXSW 2025, Druckmann elaborated on the escalation of the infected and the spread of the infection, stating, "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 the challenge of not getting swayed by online reactions to her performance.