14 DAY TRIAL // Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End might be the year’s biggest launch on the PlayStation 4, and the developers working on the game at Naughty Dog have already made it clear that this will be the final adventure that they create starring Nathan Drake.
But the biggest impact the title might have in the long-term might be related to how it will tweak the core mechanics of the third-person action genre and how it will influence the future of the franchise, according to director Neil Druckmann.
The Naughty Dog leader tells Eurogamer that he is happy to once more be in charge of the fate of Nathan Drake and associated cast after creating The Last of Us and that the new Uncharted will integrate many of the lessons he has learned while creating that title.
One of the most interesting tweaks are the optional conversations that the protagonist can have with one another, exploring some of their older interactions or talking about their current situation and how they plan to deal with it.
Druckmann says that Naughty Dog is not trying to match the likes of Mass Effect when it comes to narrative variety in Uncharted 4 and that the game will remain linear, but the interactions do offer a great occasion to learn more about the backstory and the world.
He explains, “And there's something about Sam asking Nate about his old adventures that's like, it would be kind of fun to have Nate - and therefore the player - pick which story they want to tell first. And there's a few other instances like that where it felt like a dialogue tree was just going to get you more into the scene and make it more interactive.”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will focus more on story
The third title in the series offered some massive and spectacular combat-driven set pieces, but many fans believe that they are used to mask the fact that Naughty Dog has lowered the quality of the stories that it is telling.
The game director claims that one other lesson picked up from The Last of Us is to focus more on the quiet moments between the action sequences and to give the protagonists a chance to express themselves through actions other than shooting enemies.
Nathan Drake will have to choose between his obsession with finding artifacts lost to time and his relationships in Uncharted 4, which starts off with him reconnecting with his brother Sam, who asks him to go on another grand adventure to find Libertalia and the pirate treasure associated with it.
Naughty Dog claims that the game will feature more emotion than the rest of the series put together, but it has also shown some pretty intense action scenes that fully use the power of the new home console from Sony.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will also have a multiplayer mode centered around teams and artifacts and the studio plans to deliver downloadable content packs that will expands the story.
The game is scheduled to launch on April 26 in the United States and one day later in Europe only on the PlayStation 4.