We knew we weren’t the only ones worried about Naughty Dog playing things pretty close to the chest on the Intergalactic front. We’ve been dying to hear about the sci-fi title since its reveal at The Game Awards 2024, but aside from the knowledge that it could be the studio’s most ambitious title yet, we’re yet to see it in action ahead of its rumored mid-2027 release window.

What’s taking a studio that was once so dominant so long to bring out its latest flagship title? Benson Russell, a former designer whose credits include The Last of Us and Uncharted, has weighed in on what could be holding it back in an interview with FRVR. He believes that Naughty Dog and perhaps other triple-A developers could cut down on long development times by focusing on a “North Star”, a goal that helps align development across “siloed teams” with a lot of “waste” that compromises the quality of final releases.

“The flaw in game development is that we’ve approached it from the wrong perspective. The way I’ve seen most games happen is like: ‘I want this game’s jumping mechanics; I want this game’s adventure mechanics. I genuinely think these seven-year projects… You can get them back down to five. I think you could at least cut two years off of them, if not maybe a little more, just by defining yourself, getting that North Star solid right in the beginning. And it’s not a difficult thing to do.”

While we certainly hope that Naughty Dog can find its North Star fairly early on its next project, whatever that may be, we’re certainly hoping that Intergalactic is already well on its way to its own goals, and that we’re going to be hearing (and hopefully seeing) about it reasonably soon. Perhaps at this year’s The Game Awards in December? Stay tuned for more updates in the meantime.