How the lessons Naughty Dog has learned, from Drake’s Fortune to the Last of Us, have given birth to the PS4’s biggest exclusive
It is somewhat fitting that Naughty Dog appears to be framing A Thief's End as the conclusion to the Uncharted series. We say that because, as well as representing the culmination of Drake's story, the game will also provide an opportunity for the studio to pour everything it has learned over its 26 year history into creating the definitive Uncharted. In that sense, Uncharted4 may just be the apex of everything the studio has been trying to achieve with the series since it debuted back in 2007.
Indeed, after being introduced to Uncharted 4 by Naughty Dog, there are some clear threads that can be traced through the preceding trilogy of Uncharted games and even The Last Of Us - elements that have been refined, expanded upon and reworked through each iteration. Combine that maturation of the studio and its ideas with the additional scope offered by making the generational leap to the more powerful PS4 and there's cause to be very optimistic about what Naughty Dog can achieve with its latest project.
When we talk about Naughty Dog gradually refining mechanics and ideas, though, what precisely do we mean? Well, one of the developer's key strengths has been characterisation; its ability to gives us a sense of a character's personality, their relationships and their back-stories, without resorting to lengthy and clumsy exposition. A simple line of dialogue: a glance in a cut-scene; a telling piece of body language: or even a moment of silence - these are the kinds of subtle flourishes with which Naughty Dog has been able to tell us so much.
That's something that Naughty Dog's been doing since Nathan Drake started quipping back in Drake's Fortune and has only got better at over the years. No doubt, that's partly down to the experience it's gained in terms of writing and storytelling, but it's also down to refining its technology to the point that it could produce the kinds of moving scenes we saw in The Last Of Us. Its industry-leading motion capture capabilities, in concert with its technical ability to translate those performances in such a way that the subtleties of a character's expressions are not lost, has been vital creating characters that we care about, like Drake, Ellie and Joel. With the power of the PS4 at its fingertips, we should see Naughty Dog take gigantic leaps forward as it continues to work to harness Sony’s technology in service of its storytelling.
Leaving aside the technological aspect for a moment, there’s another reason that Naughty Dog's characterisation is so good and that is because it understands that it's difficult to get a handle on protagonists if there aren’t strong and diverse characters for them to bounce off of. "We give the same amount of love and care to developing all the secondary characters that we take with the main cast," Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells explains. "We’ve long held that the best way to really get to know someone and see their personality is through their interactions with others," he continues. “That makes it crucial that all the secondary characters have the same depth and complexity to their personalities and back-story as the main cast". The idea that its necessary to develop your characters by having them interact with each other explains why, in the first Uncharted, we had Sully and Elena accompanying Drake on his adventures. Naughty Dog continued to experiment with companion characters in the next two Uncharted games, with Sully and Elena returning and the likes of Chloe and Charlie Cutter introduced.
Clearly, the studio felt there was something more there, because it ended up building a whole game around the idea of having two characters undertaking a journey together in the form of The Last Of Us. That game took the concept to a whole new level in terms of dialogue, interactions, story beats and mechanics. Early indications suggest that Naughty Dog will take what it has learnt from The Last Of Us and bring that over to Uncharted 4 as we step into the shoes of Nathan Drake and set off treasure hunting with his brother Sam at our side. Indeed, Wells tells us that having those kinds of interactions in Uncharted has been a focus for some time. "It became a no-brainer to start making sure that at least one other character was around Drake as much as possible so the personalities could play off each other and provide additional insight into who they really are," he says. It's not yet clear how much of the game will be played with Sam accompanying us and we’d be surprised if he was anywhere near as constant a companion as Ellie in The Last Of Us, but Wells comments on Uncharted's penchant for providing Drake with a foil suggests he'll be a significant feature. Regardless, those moments in which we do see Drake working alongside another character - be that his brother Sam. Sully or anybody else - the strength of those interactions and the insight they can give us into the game's characters will only be enhanced by the studio bringing to bear the skills its developed experimenting with companion characters over the course of the Uncharted series and The Last Of Us.
Of course, The Last Of Us was far more than an opportunity for Naughty Dog to finesse things it had already tried in Uncharted games. It was also an opportunity to experiment with new ideas. The starting point for that is its darker tone, its propensity to scale down towards the intimate, rather than expanding to the spectacular, as has traditionally been the case with Uncharted. "We thought people would appreciate what we were trying to do but we didn't think it would be as popular or sell as much as something like Uncharted." Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann tells us. "Luckily, we were proven wrong.”
With that success behind it, Naughty Dog knows that it can be successful with a game that's darker and more intimate. Don't get us wrong, Uncharted4 isn't suddenly become a dour and depressing dirge. It will retain that Summer Blockbuster feel and intersperse more serious moments with trademark levity. However, there's a sense that it is being tempered a darker edge and that Drake's brother is being brought in to further humanise Drake, to allow us to see a more vulnerable side. Consequently, we wouldn't be surprised to see one or two more intimate scenes to texture Drake's character, alongside the cinematic high-speed chases, explosions and fight scenes that we all expect from the Uncharted series.
There's another way in which Naughty Dog is clearly bringing what it's learnt from The Last Of Us into Uncharted 4. While there's always been a combination of out-and-out combat and stealth in the Uncharted series, the transition between the two has always been pretty binary. In The Last Of Us, however, you could slip in and out of the two states far more smoothly, popping off shots at a few enemies from behind cover before slinking off to hide and taking out any stragglers in silence as they searched the area to see where you'd vanished to, for example. What we've seen of Uncharted4 demonstrates that this has been brought into A Thief’s End. Enemies no longer remain rooted behind cover once you've engaged in combat, but will move around the area, making use of similar traversal abilities employed by Drake. Our hope is that this will help to give the game far greater scope when it comes to combat scenarios. With more fluid transitions between stealth and gunplay, as well as more proactive enemies who will search the area when you're in hiding, the game should provide the opportunity to play with your foes and environment in a far more interesting way.
Playing into that fluid approach is the more open design Naughty Dog appears to be bringing to Uncharted 4. In contrast to past games, it seems that the studio is trying to make its combat arenas into mini sandboxes, giving the player far more freedom in how they approach each scenario. When Drake's fighting those mercenaries on lie Sainte-Marie, it's apparent that there's a whole new level of verticality and intricacy to the level design It's now possible to move over, under and around enemies, clambering away from gunfire to get yourself into a better position, using ledges as a platform from which to launch melee attacks, swinging around using Drake's grapple hook or making use of the undertrush as a means to sneak you way around. Just as Naughty Dog has worked to smooth out that transition between gunplay and stealth, then, it has sought to do the same for platforming and combat. No longer is it a case of finishing a platform section, dong a bit of combat and then returning to the platforming. Now, Drake's athleticism also becomes a vital tool when engaged in combat, his climbing abilities a way of gaining an advantage over his opposition. Not only should that ability, necessity, even, to move around more freely make combat far more compelling, it's also a way of bringing the thrilling kineticism of the set pieces for which Uncharted is famed into scenarios that have traditionally been far less exciting.
Returning to those famous set pieces for a moment, they are in many ways emblematic of what's made the Uncharted series stand out. It is spectacular, ostentatious, delights in dropping the jaw of its audience. It is for that reason that Sony has used Naughty Dog’s games as standard bearers for the PS3, positioned them as titles that show what the console can do. Each Uncharted game has set the technological benchmark for the PS3, with The Last Of Us signing off the generation by pushing that console to its limit. Part of the excitement around Uncharted 4, then, is that Naughty Dog will do the same with the PS4. It is a studio that's proved it has the skill to push the technology it is working with to new levels and for that reason it will be fascinating to see what it can do with a piece of hardware that’s got as much power as the PS4.
Exciting as that is, though, we have to say that it is the aforementioned changes being made to Uncharted's gameplay that have really got our attention. It's heartening to see those changes because, without them, our excitement regarding Uncharted 4 would be tempered. After three main Uncharted entries, the series need those kinds of innovations, because a game that's as linear as those just wouldn't cut it anymore. We’ve played that game before; we need an Uncharted that offers something new. The opening up of its combat arenas; the apparent desire to give us the tools to tackle enemies in more creative ways; the creation of a combat system that leverages the liberatory speed of movement that defines Drake - those are the things that make Uncharted 4 sound like it could make the game a special PS4 exclusive.
As a sequel, though, we of course want Uncharted 4 to keep at its core the things that made the series appealing in its first place. In that respect we have cause to be confident. From its work with various companion characters, to dialogue, storytelling and combat, we’ve seen a studio that’s evolved and matured as it’s gone on. Elements that have been established and developed in the Uncharted series have been brought to The Last Of Us and explored in different ways, with the refinement of those ideas seemingly set to benefit Uncharted 4. The hope, then, is that if A Thief's End does prove to be the series' conclusion, it will be an Uncharted produced by a studio that has honed its skills to the point of mastery, not to mention a studio that has seen the series through its life. Naughty Dog has a black belt in making action adventure games, so there’s every chance that A Thief's End could be Uncharted at its apex.