Naughty Dog unveiled Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet last month, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it (though I may have to wait until the far future year of 2027). Part of the reason the Intergalactic trailer got my rocket engine revvin’ is that it looks different from Naughty Dog’s past work, but not too different.

Naughty Dog’s Slow, But Steady, Transformation

This kind of gradual change has been Naughty Dog’s strategy for a quarter century at this point. For its first decade, there was no identifiable ‘Naughty Dog style’. Ski Crazed, Rings of Power, Way of the Warrior — these games don’t have much in common and mostly seem like a young studio throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick. With Crash Bandicoot, something did. Naughty Dog found a hit, and has slowly iterated on that approach to design, slowly evolving into a studio that could make The Last of Us Part 2.

Naughty Dog nodded at this evolution in Uncharted 4, with the ultra-realistic Nate and Elena playing a level from the mega-blocky Crash Bandicoot.

Crash Bandicoot was one of the earliest 3D platformers in history, launching in North America just a few months after Super Mario 64 hit Japan. The two games handled platforming very differently. Mario gave the player control of the camera (albeit, more limited than modern 3D platformers), while Crash positioned the POV in different set-ups depending on the level. You might be running toward the camera, away from it, or side-to-side as it follows along.

Like most 3D platformers, Crash Bandicoot was aimed at kids, with a colorful, cartoony mascot. The studio’s next franchise, Jak and Daxter, followed suit, but as the grittier PS2 generation took hold, it matured along with it. The trilogy of action-platformers starred a human, with more realistic proportions than Crash, and the bipedal animal was relegated to sidekick status. The games were still mostly aimed at a younger audience, but only the first Jak was rated E. The sequels had guns, and Jak 2, 3, and the kart racer Jak X: Combat Racing all received Teen ratings.

The mechanics matured, too, as the Jak and Daxter games gave players greater control of the camera than its PS1 predecessor.

Uncharted Set A Course For Photorealism

With Uncharted, Naughty Dog left the cartoon characters and fictional worlds behind in favor of a set-up that was still pulpy, but set on our Earth starring believable human characters. While ND’s previous games had been aimed at kids, Uncharted was something that adults could play without embarrassment. It was Indiana Jones in video game form, and it arrived at a time when anyone who saw the first three movies as a kid had grown up.

The first few games had supernatural elements that took them out of the realm of the possible, but with Uncharted 4 those features were ironed out. I love that game — it’s slowly become my favorite in the series — but I kinda missed the unrealistic quirks of the earlier games. It might be silly to fight an abominable snowman, but it also kinda rules.

Uncharted 4 was grounded like The Last of Us, which is fitting because its development was headed up by that game’s directors, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. The Last of Us continued Uncharted’s graphical approach, aiming for greater and greater realism. That went even further in The Last of Us Part 2, which offered incredible detail, best-in-class animation, and industry-leading performance capture.

It was also incredibly grim, a revenge tale with a whole lot of bloody death. I love this game, too, but it felt like Naughty Dog was painting itself into a corner (especially with multiple remasters, remakes, and an HBO adaptation). It was the Last of Us studio, with all the violence and existential despair that came with it.

So, it’s heartening to see Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet offer an alternative. Naughty Dog isn’t giving up on graphical realism — in fact, Intergalactic is more visually impressive than anything it’s done before — but it is going for a lighter tone, in a sci-fi world that looks a lot more fun than The Last of Us. It looks like a return to the spirit of Uncharted. Would I enjoy seeing Naughty Dog do something completely different? Sure. But, if it’s committed to being the studio that does graphics better and more realistically than anyone else out there, I’m glad that Intergalactic’s tone is letting it loosen up.