Naughty Dog has finished shooting the cinematic content for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, the studio announced on August 31. The PlayStation 5 exclusive is the developer's first new game since The Last of Us Part 2 in 2020.
That is a wrap on the very ambitious Intergalactic cinematic shoot! This cast killed it! Cannot wait to show you their incredible work when the time is right!
The post carried a picture of Intergalactic star Tati Gabrielle wearing a performance capture suit and wielding a prop gun, Polygon reported, but revealed little beyond that. Naughty Dog has not committed to a release date.
What the milestone signals
Concluding a cinematic shoot means all of the story content has been captured by the actors, which IGN said likely suggests the game is entering its final stages. Performance capture often takes years, with actors performing the game in chunks while the team continues building the rest of it around them.
The nearest precedent is Naughty Dog's own. Neil Druckmann announced in April 2019 that performance capture had wrapped on The Last of Us Part 2; that game was originally slated for February 21, 2020, was pushed to May, and shipped in June 2020 after COVID delayed it once more. On that basis IGN put Intergalactic at roughly a year from launch, and Polygon narrowed the guess to next summer, possibly between June and August. A 2027 release has been rumoured and speculated for a while, but Naughty Dog has confirmed nothing.
The timing of the announcement drew attention of its own. Polygon noted that the studio posted a few hours after Sony Interactive Entertainment announced a State of Play showcase for September 3, which makes an Intergalactic appearance there look more likely than ever, ahead of Tokyo Game Show 2026. The game has not had a substantial official update since March 2025.
About the game
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet was announced in December 2024 at that year's The Game Awards and has been in development since 2020, according to Naughty Dog. It is set thousands of years into the future and gives players control of Jordan A. Mun, a bounty hunter stranded on a distant planet called Sempiria, from which no one has escaped in more than 600 years. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are scoring it.
IGN reported that Naughty Dog has multiple projects in development beyond it. The studio had been meant to release The Last of Us Online between The Last of Us Part 2 and Intergalactic, and its cancellation created the larger gap between releases.