Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet Has a Lot of Lessons to Learn From Batman Arkham Series and Starfield

At the 2024 Game Awards, Naughty Dog treated fans to a surprise announcement of its next project, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The game aims to offer a deep, character-driven story, with a focus on innovative gameplay, taking players into a mysterious universe with a female protagonist, Jordan A. Mun.

However, as exciting as the game’s premise is, the studio’s venture into space offers an opportunity to learn from other titles in the gaming industry. Specifically, it can take lessons from the Batman Arkham series on how to gradually expand an open-world experience and avoid the mistakes made by Starfield in its approach to space exploration.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet should take lessons from past successes and failure

In the gaming industry, there is hardly any area left for games to explore. While this may sound limiting, it offers an opportunity for studios to learn from both the successes and failures of others.

For Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Naughty Dog has the golden opportunity to learn from previous games and expand on its own premise in a meaningful way.

Since Intergalactic is set on a mysterious planet where players must explore and survive, the studio can take a page from the Batman Arkham series. The Arkham games began with the confined, narrative-driven Arkham Asylum. And over time, the world expanded to a fully open Gotham in Arkham Knight.

Each installment allowed the world to expand gradually, with new areas unlocked as players progressed in the narrative. This ensured that the growth of the world always felt purposeful and organic. The direct contrast to this philosophy is Starfield.

Bethesda’s sci-fi title wanted to give players the freedom to explore thousands of planets, but the sheer scale led to many locations feeling empty and lacking substance. The problem wasn’t that the game had too many planets, but rather that these planets didn’t offer meaningful content to keep players engaged.

That’s why Intergalactic should learn from this, making sure that when the game eventually moves into full space exploration (in its next installment or DLC), it does so with a focus on quality over quantity.

Instead of overwhelming players with countless generic locations, the game should introduce rich, detailed worlds that feel alive and connected to the narrative.

Intergalactic needs to find the correct balance

The ultimate takeaway for Naughty Dog is that exploration should always serve the narrative, not just the scale. The Batman Arkham series proved that expanding a game world gradually, with each location tied to the story or a character, is a recipe for success.

By following the narrative-first formula, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet can avoid the pitfalls of Starfield‘s expansive but shallow universe. Given the excitement surrounding Intergalactic’s announcement, fans are already eager for a new type of adventure, one that combines the studio’s mastery of storytelling with a fresh, expansive setting.

With the right approach, Intergalactic has the potential to be not just another expansive sci-fi adventure in the gaming industry, but a meaningful and immersive experience that builds upon the studio’s rich legacy of unforgettable worlds and characters.

In the end, the wait for more details is palpable, but one thing is clear: Intergalactic has a lot of promise, and if done right, it will become a milestone in the evolution of space exploration games.

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