Given that it’s the first announced Naughty Dog game in years that isn’t a remaster, remake, or sequel, that’s kind of shocking Intergalactic: The Heretical Prophet Trailer from last night‘s Game Awards no longer has more views on YouTube and more buzz online. On the other hand, the title is a real eye-catcher and not quite as catchy as Unexplored or The Last of Us.

The PlayStation version of the trailer has 587,000 views at the time of writing.

Naughty Dog’s trailer has 449,000 views.

Both trailers are rated “proportionately” in terms of likes and dislikes. The former has 38,000 likes and 51,000 dislikes at the time of writing. 29,000/40,000 for the latter. And while Naughty Dog disabled comments as soon as the trailer went live – they knew This would be controversial – Sony’s trailer has comments enabled. These include gems like:

“The trailer was 2 hours ago? “Ew, it’s so old we need a remaster”

“I have a feeling Will Smith is going to slap me for making fun of her.”

“Can I play the characters from the background anime instead?”

“You can really see that production began in 2020.”

“Somehow Concord has returned…”

“The most surprising thing about this trailer is that Sony left the comments.”

Why is this game already so controversial?

Mainly it involves the character design of the game’s main protagonist, Jordan A. Mun, played by Tati Gabrielle. You know Gabrielle from the Netflix series You and other shows as well as one of the villains in the Unexplored Film. She has a role in season 2 of The Last of Us also on HBO, so their connection to Naughty Dog obviously runs deep.

Critics of the trailer called her character design too “woke” and compared it to Sony’s recent failure. unity, which was bombed so badly that it was taken offline two weeks after launch. The failure of this game cannot be attributed entirely to “bright” character designs. Unimaginative gameplay, derivative characters, and many other factors contributed to the gaming community’s lukewarm response. But it didn’t help.

Personally, I don’t like Jordan’s character design at all, although I’m not sure you can just say it’s overly “woke”, although she certainly looks a lot like Lev TLOU2. First of all, I find it strange that the character is so much less attractive – and lighter-skinned – than Gabrielle:

The shaved head look is also strange given the game’s “cassette futurism” aesthetic, which I really like. I like the CRT monitors, the CD player, the vintage red leather jacket, everything, but the hairstyle seems completely out of place.

Of course, a shaved head significantly reduces computing power. Hair uses a lot of resources when rendering graphics, and a shaved head is simply a lot less labor intensive for the PS5 – assuming this comes out before the PS6’s release. Still, I wish we had some customization options here (and maybe we will!). This is not a game like that Dark souls or return where you rarely see the character’s face. You will spend a lot of time with this character in story scenes. Might also have the ability to fine tune.

Another reason this trailer is controversial is all of the product placement for brands like Porsche, Adidas and – to a lesser extent for obvious reasons – Sony. I remember playing Hideo Kojima Death Stranding and I’m staring at the barrel of a bevy of monster energy drinks that have just been completely ripped out of the game’s otherwise coherent post-apocalyptic world. In intergalactic, Jordan has arrived on Simperia, a mysterious planet cut off from the rest of the galaxy, after traveling from an alternate Earth where space travel played a big role in the 1980s. That explains the Pet Shop Boys CD and everything else, but the product placement is always irritating and controversial, even if it was done to give the game an 80s vibe.

Even more disturbing to me is the inclusion of recognizable celebrities, which also feels very much like a recent Hideo Kojima game, as Kojima has made it clear how much he values ​​celebrities (see, for example, the replacement of David Hayter as Snake in Metal Gear Solid V with Keifer Sutherland).

We see Kumail Nanjiani and Tony Dalton in the Intergalactic Trailer above the celebrity lead role. Naughty Dog has traditionally created its own characters and used talented voice actors to play them. The success of The Last of Us franchise has significantly shifted the studio’s focus (in the third game, Joel is completely recast and replaced by Pedro Pascal in all flashbacks, just wait). Game director Neil Druckmann takes on Kojima page by page, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

On the bright side, the aesthetic is definitely cool and the in-engine graphics we see in the trailer0 are amazing, even if we didn’t get any real gameplay. I love all those CRT monitors in the spaceship. I think it’s great that Naughty Dog is taking a step here, moving away from the “real world” stuff and going all-in on science fiction. I’m also very happy that the tone is a little less dark than the endlessly dark one TLOU2, Although I’m worried that “humor” here will essentially be annoying, funny, MCU-esque dialogue. Better yet, the soundtrack is written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the team behind the soundtracks of Over, girl And The social network. Last but not least, this game will be incredible visually and sonically.

But I’m suspicious of the protagonist for more than just her looks. The “sleazy, know-it-all boss” is the new “gray white guy” when it comes to annoying video game characters. Maybe that’s not Jordan, but that’s the vibe I get. And like many other players, I’m tired of being lectured, and maybe that won’t happen intergalactic, But it’s a valid concern when it comes to AAA Western video games at this point. I have nothing against political themes in games, but modern politics – whether it’s right-wing identity politics or social justice identity politics – simply breaks the immersion and makes a game feel instantly dated. We’ll see.