Did you know that Jordan's spaceship in Intergalactic comes from Porsche? Probably yes, because it's hard to miss in the trailer.
Naughty Dog finally revealed its new game at the Game Awards. However, this is not a new Uncharted or The Last of Us, but a completely new IP: Intergalactic: The Heretical Prophet.
In the first trailer it looks like a game that could be made directly for me – however, there is one thing that makes me rather skeptical and it has nothing to do with the story, characters or gameplay. No, it's the eye-catching product placements.
A promising game if it weren't for one thing
The most important RPG series of my late teens is definitely Mass Effect. What did I cry at the end of the third part, curse BioWare and then immediately start the next run!
Since then, I've been looking for a new title that can satisfy this need for a great single-player sci-fi game that I want to lose myself in. My last great hope here was Starfield, which didn't really hit that nerve.
I was correspondingly curious when the first seconds of the Intergalactic trailer flickered across my screen at the Game Awards. A tracking shot through space, accompanied by gentle synth beats, the retro-futuristic look with tube screens over which anime scenes flicker – the first seconds grabbed me straight away.
At least until the camera zooms out a little further and the word “Porsche” is emblazoned in gigantic letters on the back of the main character Jordan’s spaceship.
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Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet – The first trailer for the new game from Naughty Dog
This isn't the only moment in which the trailer shows product placement: Jordan is wearing black and red Adidas sneakers, her CD changer in the cockpit comes from Sony. The latter is of course quite appropriate, after all, this is a first-party game for the PS5. Nevertheless, I notice how much these moments in the trailer take me out of the action.
On the one hand, it can of course be argued that the product placements contribute to world building. This makes it clear that Intergalactic is not supposed to take place in some fictional sci-fi universe, but in our future (or an alternative timeline of it). But I also understand that when Jordan's CD player Actually, Pet Shop Boys hangs up.
Was Jordan conceived as a character who values branded goods? Or was this feature given to it later so that Adidas advertising could be placed in the game? We don't know.
Uncharted and The Last of Us already had little Easter eggs with Sony hardware that were quite funny and at the same time told us more about the world. In The Last of Us, for example, the PlayStation 4 never came out because the world ended beforehand.
On the contrary, this is simply advertising. Sony receives money to put these products in their games. Of course, they also have to be placed prominently in order to pay off. It takes me out of the immersion quite hard and makes me feel more like I'm watching a commercial than a trailer for a new game.
Death Stranding already had questionable product placement
Of course, this isn't the first time Sony has incorporated product placement into their games. In addition to the aforementioned Easter eggs from Uncharted and TLoU, Death Stranding had the infamous Monster Energy cans.
My colleague Tobi has already complained about this:
It just doesn't fit with the established reality of the world when protagonist Sam downs one energy drink after another in the post-apocalypse. I fear a similar break in immersion with Intergalactic.
The game would definitely have the chance to use its advertising well and enrich the world building and atmosphere – perhaps Porsche is the only one here who has the rights to build spaceships and any ship that does not bear their logo is considered illegal? At least in my head, that sounds like a cool idea.
But the trailer doesn't give me the feeling that that will be the case. This is probably also because I have already discovered four product placements in just under four minutes because they are almost thrown at me.
I can only hope that it no longer seems so invasive in the finished game and that it fits much better into the game world. Only then could Intergalactic become the next single-player sci-fi game I want to lose myself in.
How do you see it, do product placements annoy you when playing, or can you generally ignore them?
