Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet brings "a different side of Naughty Dog," lead actor says, which sounds great after 100 years of The Last of Us

The Last of Us and Uncharted studio Naughty Dog's next big game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, is apparently going to show us "a different side" to the studio, according to its lead actor, and after what's felt like an eternity of The Last of Us, it sounds like it could be the breath of fresh air fans need.

Speaking in a new interview with IGN (below), Tati Gabrielle, who plays the role of protagonist and bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, is asked if she's seen anything recently of the game that she's particularly excited for fans to see. "Literally all of it," the actor replies.

"I am excited to play myself," they continue. "I think that it's such a different side of Naughty Dog that I think people are going to get really excited for."

Gabrielle hints that it appears that the devs at Naughty Dog have "even challenged themselves" in some ways, specifically pointing to Intergalactic's world-building. Of course, with the limited amount of information we've been given about the game since its reveal at the 2024 Game Awards, it's hard to know exactly how this will go – looking at The Last of Us franchise, for example, I wouldn't say Naughty Dog's previous world-building efforts have been bad, even if a lot of it was pretty subtle (some blanks were definitely filled in in the TV adaptation), but it sounds like that's going to be more of a focus for this game.

It'll be interesting to see what this "different side of Naughty Dog" is, too. Studio head Neil Druckmann previously teased that it's "shaping up to be our wildest, most creative story yet," so it's not the first time we've heard something like this. Unless you count 2022's Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Naughty Dog hasn't released a non-Last of Us game since 2017, either, so we're definitely due for a break from the post-apocalyptic fungus fight.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet doesn't currently have a release date – previous rumors have suggested it won't be arriving this year, and given that we're already at the end of April with no indication of its launch, yeah, that'd make sense. Even so, Gabrielle is "super stoked" for it – we'll just have to wait and see what Naughty Dog has up its sleeve.

After 7 years of development, The Last of Us Online was 80% complete and was scrapped to make room for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.