With digital versions of the February 2015 issue of Game Informer now available, further details have surfaced about Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which is scheduled to launch in 2015 on PlayStation 4.
First up, it’s been confirmed that there will be a multiplayer mode of some sort, which shouldn’t come as a shock since both Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception both included one as well. Unfortunately, no specific details were given about the multiplayer mode.
As for development of Uncharted 4, The Last of Us Remastered helped Naughty Dog with the game, and a small team began work on Uncharted 4 shortly after Drake’s Deception wrapped. Then, half the team moved to A Thief’s End once The Last of Us was completed, and the rest joined after the Left Behind DLC shipped.
Moving to the story, Uncharted 4 takes place three years after Uncharted 3 and begins with Nathan Drake and Elena living happily together. After believing him to be dead, Nate’s brother Sam shows up and reveals that his life depends on him finding an artifact from Henry Avery. Feeling indebted to his brother, and with his addiction to treasure hunting (Game Director Neil Druckmann likens it to a drug addiction) making him unable to resist, Sam takes Nate to Libertalia, a mythic Madagascar colony. The entire game won’t take place in this sole location though, with snowy and urban environments teased.
In A Thief’s End you’ll meet up with two rival hunters: Rafe and Nadine. Rafe is a different treasure hunter than Nate with a different morale and approach, while Nadine owns a private military company in South Africa.
Looking at the relationship between Sam and Nathan, Sam is five years older and more reckless, while also a little jealous of his little brother, who he sees as better at everything. For Nate, the lack of Sam being in his life for so long is “what’s driven him in the last games.” You can also expect some nice co-op moments between the brothers.
Featuring an overhauled AI system, the AI for Sam was compared to that of Ellie from The Last of Us, though Sam is a grown up treasure who is much stronger than Ellie. So, with Sam, you’ll get to “explore what it’s like to be with somebody as capable of Nathan Drake.”
Here’s an overview of some of the other interesting pieces of information from the Game Informer article:
- Cutscenes are all in real-time
- Enemies can grab your leg if you try to push them over a ledge
- Villains will play a bigger role this time around
- There will be more tools besides the rope and metal spike, and Naughty Dog wants to incorporate them into puzzles.
- The large puzzle rooms from Uncharted 3 will be present in Uncharted 4, with Naughty Dog saying Drake’s Deception had the best puzzles in the series and they want to build on that.
- As A Thief’s End focuses on navigational freedom, you’ll be able to choose from multiple paths, but all of them have consequences and there’s no “golden path.”
- If you’re looking, there’s lots of side stories to discover.
- You can attack enemies from all sides.
- The cost of adventuring on Drake’s life will be a major focus of the story.
- Like in The Last of Us, moments where characters react to what they see or read will be present
- Regarding set pieces, Naughty Dog says their concept is now focused on making it impactful and emotionally charged. “We want to constantly surprise the player, so it can be really intimate, or really big and bombastic.”
While Druckmann appeared to confirm A Thief’s End will be the end of Nathan Drake’s story, Naughty Dog wouldn’t give a straight answer about whether or not that’s true.
[Source: Game Informer via NeoGAF, IGN]
