Back in 2020, Naughty Dog, the studio behind The Last of Us Part 2, as well as Abby actor Laura Bailey and director Neil Druckmann, responded to the online harassment and death threats they had received following the game’s release.
Fast forward to 2025, and Druckmann has been “bootcamp-ing” Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet’s Tati Gabrielle on The Last of Us Part 2 online hate that occurred five years ago in preparation for what might be coming as a result of simply playing the protagonist in Naughty Dog’s upcoming video game.
Naughty Dog revealed Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet at The Game Awards 2024. It features a star-studded cast that includes Tati Gabrielle from the Uncharted movie as protagonist Jordan A. Mun, and Kumail Nanjiani of Marvel’s Eternals as a man called Colin Graves.
In a March interview with Alex Garland, the writer of zombie movie 28 Days Later, Druckmann talked candidly about the development process, confirming Intergalactic had been in the works for four years already.
“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 takes place in an alternate historical timeline and features a “pretty prominent religion,” too, which has “changed and bastardized and evolved” over the years.
“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.”
Now, speaking to Entertainment Weekly as part of promotion of The Last of Us Season 2, Gabrielle revealed Druckmann’s preparation as she begins life as not just a movie and TV star, but a video game star.
“Neil’s been bootcamp-ing me,” she said. “I know Troy’s experience, I know Ashley’s experience… I know Laura Bailey’s experience.”
As EW pointed out, Bailey endured online hate simply because she played the character Abby, who kills Joel. Gabrielle has also received racist and misogynistic online hate following the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet reveal, she said.
“I got a lot of love, but there was a lot of hate over me being a woman, me being a woman of color, me having my head shaved, all these things that I didn’t even actually initially see — I’m out of the social media zeitgeist for that reason — but once I did, Neil was like, ‘Ignore it. No matter what, me and you, we’re going to make something beautiful. We’re going to make something that we’re proud of.'”
Gabrielle said that because she is entering the world of video games for the first time, she is trying to prepare herself as best as possible.
“This is a world — video games — that I’ve never stepped into before. So I don’t want to put one thing in my mind of expecting it’s going to be this way and then it’s not, and then I’m unprepared or take it too lightly,” she says.
Gabrielle also briefly touched on the theme of faith, which Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will revolve around.
“The question of faith is not black and white,” she said. “When you initially think of faith, you think of religion, which is a part of it, but there’s also faith in oneself. There’s faith in your environment or your community. All that faith means is, what are your beliefs? What are the things that you hope for? Faith sounds flowery, but we all experience it day in and day out. What is your reason for waking up?”
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is not expected to release until 2027 at the earliest. It’s a pretty long wait, but speaking to IGN on the red carpet ahead of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere, Druckmann said that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is not only playable right now, but “really good.”
“I will say we are playing it at the office and it’s incredible,” Druckmann teased. “It’s really good. I’m so excited to finally put gameplay out into the world and show people about it, because we just showed you the very, very, very tip on the iceberg. The game goes pretty deep beyond that.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
