The development is going smoothly now that Druckmann and Straley are sticking with it

Jun 3, 2014 07:12 GMT  ·  By

The Last of Us directors Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley will continue to lead the development of Uncharted 4, according to Naughty Dog, which has just received a few more details about the game's story and how it can be enjoyed without requiring knowledge of previous titles.

The three Uncharted titles that appeared on the PS3 over the last few years delighted tens of millions of consoles owners worldwide, delivering great action adventure third-person shooter experiences.

The games were all led and imagined by Amy Hennig, and the fourth one confirmed for the PS4 was already set to continue this trend. Unfortunately, Hennig left Naughty Dog at the beginning of the year and moved to Visceral Games to lead the new Star Wars title made by the EA-owned studio.

Now, after revealing that the work on Uncharted 4 was going to be temporarily led by The Last of Us directing duo Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, Naughty Dog has confirmed to GameInformer that the two veterans have agreed to see the project to fruition.

The studio's co-founder, Evan Wells, has even mentioned that Druckmann and Straley have previously worked on the franchise's first and second iterations, so they have experience with protagonist Nathan Drake and his adventures.

In terms of the actual game, Naughty Dog is quite excited about it, its standalone story, and how fans don't need to experience the first three games to make sense of the plot.

"We sure hope you're surprised by how amazing it looks! It's going to be an exciting story, and I think people are going to really buy into this one in a way that I think is consistent with the rest of the stories," he said.

"It's a stand-alone adventure like all of them are; we don't expect people to have played the past games to enjoy the current one. But you're going to get to experience Drake and his crew in a new way."

Wells has also emphasized that an evolution in terms of the story and narrative will certainly be felt by players but it won't be a sharp turn.

"If you go from Uncharted 1 to 2 to 3, you can see there's definitely an evolution in the storytelling techniques and the gravity of the situations and the relationships that Drake's put in. The next Uncharted will continue that evolution. I don't know if you're digging at the theory that's out there that it's somehow going to be this departure or that The Last of Us is indicative of the future of Naughty Dog projects."

"It's not going to be that sharp of a turn. I think it's an evolution that people will be comfortable with if they've played the previous Uncharted games."

Uncharted 4 for the PS4 is set to receive a stage demonstration next week at E3 2014 during Sony's June 9 press conference.