14 DAY TRIAL // The Uncharted series has focused on the adventures of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter that’s trying to uncover lost relics, while fighting and killing legions of mercenaries, the latter of which always caused quite a lot of debate inside the gaming community.
This problem has already been raised amongst the team at Naughty Dog, the franchise’s developer, and quite a lot of steps were taken to portray Drake in the best possible way, while justifying his lengthy killing sprees throughout the three games that were released in the series so far.
According to Uncharted 3 co-lead designer, Richard Lemarchand, Drake’s actions have come under a lot of scrutiny, largely because the gameplay is intertwined with the cinematic aspects and the performance of the characters.
“We discuss this a lot at the studio - in fact, Amy Hennig even has a phrase for it. She calls it the Uncanny Valley of Narrative. As the quality of the performances has risen it draws people's attention even more to the gamey aspects of our games,” Lemarchand told CVG.
“We know sometimes it's jarring; we go to great lengths not to make it any more jarring than it has to be. We worked very hard to make sure enemies always attack first, for example, so if he doesn't fight back then the enemies would kill Drake. He has no choice.”
The Uncharted developer even points out a scene in the second game, where Drake throws an unsuspecting guard from the roof of a museum, who is then seen swimming to safety, glimpse that was added by Lemarchand himself.
“It could've been any of us, but I happened to see it, and then of course everyone jumped to it and said, "Yeah, it was an unprovoked attack, it would be unfair if he didn't swim to safety." What we could've done better is make it clearer he survived; maybe with a sound effect. Perhaps we could've heard a splash and then had him say, "Why did you do that?"”
These little gestures, according to the developer, make Drake seem a bit more human, instead of just a killing machine throughout the Uncharted games.