With The Last of Us coming out in exactly two weeks, it likely marks the last time we’ll ever see a PS3 exclusive title from Naughty Dog, as they transition over into the PlayStation 4.
Thanks to a “big lesson” they learned going from PS2 to PS3, which involved scrapping the “perfectly good” engine used in the Jak & Daxter franchise when work began on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Bruce Straley, Game Director, revealed to Digital Spy that Naughty Dog will use The Last of Us and Uncharted engine on PS4.
Bruce explained exactly what that lesson was by saying:
As we move into development into next-gen, we want to take our current engine, port it immediately over as is and say, ‘Okay, we have a great AI system, we have a good rendering system’. We have all these things that already work. Only when we hit a wall will we say, ‘When do we need to change something? When do we need to scale it? When does the gameplay, when does the story, when does the world that we need to create – when does this engine hit the wall? Right, now we need to change this part of the engine.’ Hindsight’s 20-20, and it sounds obvious to say it, but it’s one of those things that you learn in development. We’ve gained something from this experience, and now we want to apply it moving into next gen.
While we have no idea what Naughty Dog is currently working on, if they happen to do a surprise E3 reveal, you can be sure we’ll let you know about it.
Do you think we’ll see Uncharted 4 at E3? Let us know in the comments below.
