The Last of Us Director Neil Druckmann Wants Naughty Dog’s New Game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet to Make You Feel ‘Really Lost and Confused’

The Last of Us director Neil Druckmann has shared more details about Naughty Dog’s upcoming game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

In an interview with Alex Garland, the writer of zombie movie 28 Days Later, Druckmann talked candidly about the development process, confirming Intergalactic has been in the works for four years.

“I joke about this with the team. 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,” Druckmann said, to which Garland joked: “Who gives a shit?”

“Exactly,” Druckmann added. “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, which stars Jordan A. Mun as Tati Gabrielle, takes place in an alternate historical timeline and features a “pretty prominent religion,” too, which has “changed and bastardized and evolved” over the years.

Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in centuries to leave its orbit.

“This whole religion takes place on this one planet, and then at one point, all communication stops,” Druckmann teased. “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,” 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.”

Last week, The Last of Us Season 2 showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin confirmed “spores are back” following their omission from Season 1.

The latest trailer for the upcoming HBO show teased the introduction of spores after they were left out of Season 1. Speaking at SXSW 2025, Druckmann said there is “an escalation of numbers and types of infected, but also, as you see in the trailer, an escalation of the vector of how this thing spreads.”

“Season 1, we had this new thing that wasn’t in the game of these tendrils that spread, and that was one form,” he explained. “And then one shot you see in this trailer, there are things in the air.”

In other The Last of Us Season 2 news, actress Kaitlyn Dever discussed playing Abby, admitting she finds it hard to stop herself from looking at the reaction on the internet.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.