We haven't seen much from Naughty Dog's new space romp Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet outside of its reveal trailer from well over a year ago, but game director Neil Druckmann has just teased that a prominent The Last of Us actor is set to return.
On his personal Instagram account, Druckmann yesterday uploaded a picture of actor Merle Dandridge wearing a motion capture suit while posing in what looks like a mocap studio. The caption is a little less vague, calling Dandridge a "n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ intergalactic treasure." Calling it a tease might be cutting it short.
Merle Dandridge has a pretty long, extensive history with Naughty Dog. She first appeared as Marlene in the first The Last of Us, returned briefly in The Last of Us Part 2, and then reprised her role for HBO's live-action adaptation of the zombie games. She was also in Naughty Dog's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, though her most iconic role in my books was voicing Alyx Vance in the original Half-Life games.
Details on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet have been pretty hush hush, casting teases aside. We know the third-person action game follows a spacefaring bounty hunter who gets stranded on an isolated planet. Druckmann has said in the past that it's also a game "about religion and faith," though he said it was apparently "still evolving and changing" this time last year.
On a more dour note, developers at Naughty Dog were reportedly doing mandatory overtime to finish an internal demo of the game late last year. That's despite the PlayStation studio promising that "it's something we're not going to do anymore" in response to The Last of Us Part 2's unhealthy crunch culture.
