Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet leak hints at RPG mechanics, combat, visuals and more; late 2026 launch expected

Naughty Dog has been working on its upcoming AAA open-world RPG titled Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet since 2020. It was first announced at The Game Awards last year and since then, not much has been revealed, other than the barebones PlayStation page. Now, a new leak brings some interesting information describing the setting, gameplay, visuals, and more, as well as the release window.

The information comes courtesy of a user who claims to have worked as a QA on builds from February to May on a PS5 Pro devkit, via 4chan. It starts of by describing the open-world, stating that it is on the lines of The Last of Us Part II meets Dark Souls. It is not exactly an open-world but more like a “nested sandbox” with large traversable areas. Once on a planet, the player can use parkour, a glider, and something called “faith anchors” to unlock fast travel.

The combat in Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is said to be similar to God of War 2018 with combos, weakpoint targeting, and more. In terms of the RPG mechanics, there will be a dialogue box for communicating with other characters. The protagonist is mostly alone and there are multiple ways to avoid several encounters.

The post goes on to state that the lighting engine is “insane” and the colors shift based on the “planetary phase” throughout the game. Adding to the visuals is the ambient drone music that transitions to “metal” religious choir and rock. All this makes for a religious apocalypse fanfic meets hard sci-fi setting, according to the leaker.

As for the release, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is said to be slated for late 2026 but a cinematic trailer could be showcased at The Game Awards this year.

Commenters on the post are sceptical about the credibility of the information and since Naughty Dog has not shared any official information about the aforementioned mechanics, do take this with a grain of salt.