Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet Not Being Embraced Online
The Game Awards were held this past Friday, and while some big trailers debuted throughout the broadcast – The Witcher 4, Tekken 8, Elden Ring: Nightreign, that game where you move to a new apartment – the one getting the most traction online is Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Unfortunately for developer Naughty Dog and publisher Sony, it’s not the kind of traction they wanted from the game featured in the final trailer of the ceremony. The trailer to the sci-fi action game, which you can see below, featured a woman who shaved her head before heading out to a Bermuda Triangle-like alien planet called Sempiria to hunt down the members of some group called the Five Aces. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet trailer below:
My reaction was thinking the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet trailer was boring as sin. Why they chose to advertise an action game with a droning exposition scene, I have no idea; there’s no release date yet, but development has to be far enough along that they could’ve shown something a little more enticing. The online reaction from gamers hasn’t been overly positive, either, and if you scroll the comments for #IntergalacticTheHereticProphet on X, you’ll see people critiquing the masculine energy from the lead character and, admittedly, some defenders. I think the negative reaction is partly because this is not happening in a vacuum; not only has there been a noticeable push for more masculine or non-traditional female characters in video games lately, but Naughty Dog was ridiculed over its depiction of one such lady in The Last of Us Part II. And a look at the trailer’s YouTube hostings heavily suggests most people aren’t thrilled with the look of the game; in a video I’ll embed below, Yellowflash reveals that the like-to-dislike ratio for the trailer is 57K/131K on the Naughty Dog channel and 82K/186K on the PlayStation channel.
Most don’t seem to be digging Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and from what Yellowflash said in that video, Sony may be taking notice. He cites a 4chan post claiming that the people at the very top of the Sony hierarchy are not happy with their video game division, and while he says to remain skeptical, as this is just a 4Chan post, I think there’s reason to suspect he’s right. That Park Place reports that Naughty Dog has disabled comments on their host of the trailer; Sony, on the other hand, did not turn off comments on the version hosted on the PlayStation account, perhaps because they want to see the reactions the trailer is eliciting. And this is coming on the heels of the complete disaster that was Concord, the first-person shooter Sony was cultivating to be a mega-franchise. That game bombed so hard that Sony canceled it, refunded all purchases, and closed Firewalk Studios, the in-house label that developed the game; later, stories came out about an out-of-control budget and an atmosphere of “toxic positivity” at Firewalk. This makes me inclined to believe Sony is eager to hear the online feedback, which can’t be making them happy. They’re also reeling from their big mistake in trying to force PlayStation Network accounts on PC gamers for Helldivers 2, and the backlash against their (probable) attempts to censor some of the skimpier outfits in Stellar Blade. Aside from Sony, there’s a report – again unsubstantiated – that BioWare, hot on the heels of the Dragon Age: The Veilguard disaster, is determined to eliminate anything that could be construed as woke from Mass Effect 5.
and all that of course but this would fit very nicely with a few other rumblings i have heard from back channels. Companies want to get rid of the woke but are equally worried the woke will attack them for it and so will try to hit a middle line. pic.twitter.com/ePye1jWx2M
— The ArchCast (@TArchcast) December 15, 2024
These reports coming out at the same time make me wonder if the video game industry, and the entertainment industry at large, are finally ready to turn things around. If so, there’s not much Sony can do about Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet at this point – it’s been in development since 2020 – but maybe it’ll be the last of the identity-politics-infused games that are driving gamers nuts right now, at least from Sony and BioWare; but if that’s the case, we could see the dominoes start to fall soon after that.
Let us know what you think of the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet trailer below!
***
If you want to know what kind of political leanings movies have or just talk about cinema, check out the movie ratings community Criticless.
Get Your Geeks + Gamers merch here!
