Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has already earned itself the unfortunate nickname of Product Placement: The Game. I’m not going to argue that it’s unfair, with Porsche, Sony, and Adidas all prominently appearing in the trailer. However, I do suspect the label is inaccurate, or at the very least, that there might be more to this one.
For starters, these are not just random references. Jordan, the game’s protagonist, wears Adidas trefoil sneakers, which were notably popular in the 1980s. She also listens to ’80s band Pet Shop Boys on her ’80s-era Sony stereo disc player, and even her spaceship’s Porsche spoiler resembles the Porsche 911 design of the same era. These are obviously deliberate stylistic choices. We just don’t know why yet.
Intergalactic’s Product Placement Is All Deliberately ’80s
Intergalactic offers a compelling premise. It’s set in a reality alternate to our own, yet very similar. The soundtrack is diegetic – Pet Shop Boys, along with Adidas and Sony and Porsche and the concept of anime, all exist in this alternate timeline. The fact the retro Sony stereo is actually fitted into the ship suggests that space travel existed at the same time as Pet Shop Boys rather than Jordan being old skool.
This is where the song’s title comes in. Though a little on the nose, a song called It’s A Sin to set the tone for a game called The Heretic Prophet suggests religion will be a major factor. Add in creator and director Neil Druckmann saying the game is about “what happens when you put your faith in different institutions”, and it feels as though the game might be about commercialism itself, with the ’80s (the most materialistic decade in pop culture) the perfect foil for that narrative exploration.
Of course, how subversive is it really when these companies are still giving you money? I don’t care much that ‘we’ give Kojima a pass because I never have. I found the Monster Energy stuff hackneyed in Death Stranding too. The mass display of commercialism feels very Blade Runner, while the interior of the ship, Jordan’s jacket, and the anime on TV all point to influence flooding in from Cowboy Bebop and Akira. On the one hand, these are extremely cool things to be influenced by. On the other, Naughty Dog is rarely so bold in where it is drawing from (not even with Uncharted to Indy), and these seem like obvious references done to death already. The jury is out.
You Don’t Have To Like It
I understand why people don’t want to give Naughty Dog the benefit of the doubt. For all The Last of Us Part 2 was critically acclaimed and a commercial success, it was highly divisive, both for less substantial in-game reasons like killing off characters and playing as two women, to more loaded issues like its apparent stance on real-world conflicts that Druckmann’s own interviews corroborated.
Naughty Dog is also the first name many people think of when they hear the word ‘crunch’, and it certainly seems to be continuing its worst habits by spending four years working on a game and only having a CGI trailer with some impressive, if fairly useless, technical wizardry like sliding on a jacket to show for it. If people were hoping for a change in directorial style, either within the game or the studio overall with a fresh name at the helm, the safe hands of Druckmann on the wheel once more will win more hearts than it loses, but you can be sure it will lose some nonetheless.
Any subversive points trying to be made are also undercut by Sony’s two recent blockbusters. While Astro Bot won over most cynics by the end, it still operates on some level as an advertisement for Sony’s former glories. Spider-Man 2, with its much-maligned Miles Morales Original (made by Adidas, even though Miles famously only wears Jordans), had some far more obvious product placement going on with no reason beyond making money.
Product Placement Might Be Holding Naughty Dog Together
Druckmann has said recently that it was hard watching fans complain about the studio pumping out remakes and remasters, but factually, it has been doing that. Since The Last of Us Part 2 launched in 2020, the only thing Naughty Dog has managed as a studio aside from remasters has been to fail at making a live-service game that was supposed to launch alongside TLOU2 as a multiplayer mode. Clearly the studio has been hard at work on Intergalactic, but again, it has no gameplay. Naughty Dog has hauled itself into the ‘once in a generation’ category with Rockstar, but that adds a lot more pressure on Intergalactic to be a Grand Theft Auto-sized hit.
As of Spring 2022, the last time we received an official update, The Last of Us Part 2 had sold ten million copies. GTA 5 sold 205 million copies as of last month. Naughty Dog does not have the numbers to be a Rockstar. But, many would argue, it does have the quality. There is a lot to question about Naughty Dog’s development style and its priorities, but the results, the games in a vacuum, are very good. The reason the trailer for Intergalactic went all the way back to Crash Bandicoot, a series Naughty Dog doesn’t even own any more, was as if to say “we have never missed”. Rings of Power did not get a mention.
If Naughty Dog needs Adidas and Porsche money to maintain its Rockstaresque existence, maybe that’s a fair trade. If the story can embed this product placement naturally, and even subvert its original purpose, maybe it’s worth it. Maybe Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is Product Placement: The Game. Maybe it couldn’t be a game without it.
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment