Naughty Dog Reportedly Taking Inspiration From Elden Ring for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

Naughty Dog is reportedly taking inspiration from Elden Ring for its next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. At the time of the reveal, the studio promised its newest franchise for the PS5 would offer the “deepest gameplay in Naughty Dog’s history.” An industry insider, however, has claimed that Intergalactic will take notes from FromSoftware’s action-RPG phenomenon that won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2022.

Naughty Dog Taking Inspiration From Elden Ring

According to Ben Hanson, founder of independent games media outlet MinnMax, Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is inspired by Elden Ring, providing more choices to players.

“At some point on the podcast a while ago before the reveal trailer happened, I teased the idea of like ‘I’ve heard Naughty Dog’s next game is very inspired by a game with a lot of player freedom.’ I think it’s fine to say now: that game was Elden Ring that it was compared to back then,” Hanson said on the latest edition of The MinnMax Show last week.

“If I would have said ‘Naughty Dog’s next game is like Elden Ring’ and then that reveal trailer came out, I feel like we would have been lit on fire. But now that idea of, okay, it’s taking place on one planet, kind of uncovering the history of this world, you can kind of see a little more where they might be going with that,” he added.

Before Intergalactic was revealed at The Game Awards 2024 in December, Hanson had claimed on his show, citing a source who worked on the title, that Naughty Dog’s next game would feature “a lot of player freedom”.

Neil Druckmann on Intergalactic

Following the reveal, Naughty Dog president and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet director Neil Druckmann said that the game would be the studio’s “wildest, most creative story yet.” Druckmann also promised the game would feature an “emotional, character-driven” story typical to developer’s games and the “deepest gameplay in Naughty Dog’s history”.

In fact, long before Intergalactic was revealed, Druckmann said he was interested in games like Elden Ring and Inside that delivered their stories through environment, exploration and gameplay, rather than through a traditional linear narrative and cinematic cutscenes.

“I’m more recently intrigued by stuff like Elden Ring and Inside that doesn’t rely as much on traditional narrative to tell its story and is–I think there’s some–some of the best storytelling in “The Last of Us,” a lot of it is in the cinematics. But a lot of it is in gameplay and moving around a space and understanding a history of a space by just looking at it and examining it,” Druckmann had said in an interview with The Washington Post in 2023.

Naughty Dog hasn’t revealed a ton of details about Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but from the reveal trailer it does seem the studio is going for a different approach with the gameplay from its previous releases. Both Uncharted and The Last of Us are third-person action-adventure games that primarily centre around shooting. Intergalactic, however, seems to be adding melee combat to the mix as well, with the protagonist seen wielding a sword in the trailer.

The game is also set on a remote planet where exploration will be key to discovering secrets about the planet’s past and guiding players forward. Here, Elden Ring’s approach to open-ended and largely unguided exploration of its world, the Lands Between, could act as gameplay inspiration for Intergalactic.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet does not yet have a confirmed release date, but the game has been in development since 2020 and will be released exclusively on the PS5.