It’d be second nature to predict what gameplay will look like inIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophetgiven the announcement trailer’s tease of combat. It’ll be exciting to learn more about what Jordan A. Mun’s ‘blade’ weapon actually is inIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, for instance, while Naughty Dog’s bread-and-butter gunplay doesn’t seem to be going anywhere as Jordan holsters what appears to be an SMG on her thigh. However, Naughty Dog combat could look more unfamiliar than it has in decades due to the enemies Jordan might face on Sempiria.
Gameplay in The Last of Us and Uncharted Has a Common Denominator
The Last of Usis a science-fiction IPregardless of how immersive and grounded its world and characters are, andUnchartedblurs the line between globe-trotting realism and supernatural antiquity. Gameplay in both franchises is rooted in characters being normal humans, even ifUncharted’s Nathan Drake has exceptionally understated upper-body strength and the ability to effortlessly free climb any surface.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s EndandUncharted: The Lost Legacyhave the most in-depth gameplay oftheUnchartedfranchisedue to them being the most modern, though they’re no less constrained by the fact that the enemies players face are, for the most part, mere humans with firearms, which boils down to a lot of cover-based shootouts.
Moreover, whileThe Last of Us’ fungi-laden creaturesaren’t all that different from human enemies. Runners and stalkers are practically human enemies who sprint, hide, and lunge around, for example, much less trade punches with players.
It isn’t until the infected mutate into clickers, shamblers, or bloaters that the distinction becomes prominent with erratic behavior and monstrous tendencies, and yet players gun them down indiscriminately. It may not be anywhere near as grandiose or epic as, say, a boss battle in aGod of Wargame, butIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophethas already debuted a foe who’ll likely demand a considerable reevaluation of gameplay design to tackle.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet May Let Naughty Dog Flex Its Combat Muscles
InIntergalactic, Jordan seems to be a normal human being, too, and uses a nearby boulder to propel herself into the air as she swings a unique blade-like weapon down on a multi-arm machine-like creature wielding a greataxe. That said,Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet’s enemy designmight be where combat deviates the most from what Naughty Dog has achieved and settled into withUnchartedandThe Last of Us: enemy types and variation.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophethas already debuted a foe who’ll likely demand a considerable reevaluation of gameplay design to tackle.
If it’s implied that the machine creature is one of many and not a lone boss that players will come across, there’s no telling what other enemy designs may be awaiting players inIntergalactic’s unprecedented sci-fi landscape. Indeed, withIntergalactictaking place “2,000 years in an alternate future that deviates in the late-80s” and Sempiria being host to any number of conceivable religious nightmares,The Heretic Prophetis bound to reverse-engineer player movement so that Jordan has a chance of surviving against creatively designed threats.
As a bounty hunter, it’ll be interesting to see how skilled or improvisational Jordan is in combat scenarios, though it won’t be surprising if what she’s up against on Sempiria is unlike anything she could’ve anticipated. It’s impossible to know yet whether Jordan has ever seen a robotic creature like the one she jumps toward in the trailer, much less if robotic creatures with beady red eyes and weapons are commonplace inIntergalactic’s space-faring galaxy. But, ifIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophetis as lonely of a game as Neil Druckmann suggests, Jordan will probably require more thanThe Last of Us Part 2’s dodge mechanicto get by.
