14 DAY TRIAL // The development team that worked on the Uncharted series at Naughty Dog says that it had problems settling on a final name for its experience and had to work hard in order to convince publisher Sony to accept its choice.
Evan Wells, a co-president of the studio, tells IGN that the process was long and that, “Finally, for E3, we needed a name. We put the name in the trailer. It was going to be Uncharted. We made our peace with it and said, ‘okay, this is going to be awesome’.”
Phil Harrison, who was one of the vice presidents at Sony overseeing game publishing, was unsatisfied with the name because, in the United Kingdom, the word “uncharted” is often used to refer to a game that performed badly in the retail environment.
Wells adds, “But we had this trailer we were showing in the press conference. He says, ‘that’s okay, just don’t put a name on it’. We’re like, ‘uh, okay’. We had this whole end slate ready to go. I guess we’ll put the Naughty Dog logo up there? The ends and it just says ‘Naughty Dog’, and we still didn’t know what to call it.”
Fans were also confused about the lack of a clear name and sometimes talked about the game as a male version of Tomb Raider.
Naughty Dog finally managed to convince Sony that Uncharted was the perfect name for the experience it was creating.
The series has been one of the biggest sellers on the PlayStation 3 and has made Nathan Drake one of the best loved characters owned by Sony.
At the moment, Naughty Dog is working on a new title in the franchise that will be delivered on the PlayStation 4.
The project currently has no official name, no launch window and limited details have been offered on the mechanics and story.