Home Gaming A wealth of new Uncharted 4 details escape

A wealth of new Uncharted 4 details escape

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UCsleeping

Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4 is out towards the end of this year – if it doesn’t end up being delayed like everything else. It’s got a new creative team in the way of The Last of Us’ Bruce Straley and Nil Druckmann – and as such will be headed in a slightly new direction. There’s a wealth of information on that new direction in the latest edition of Edge magazine, which has been disseminated by the chaps at neoGAF.

In a post on the prolific forum, user SSReborn details some of what you can expected from Uncharted: A Thief’s End. Here it is, copied verbatim because it’s Monday and my brain still thinks it’s the weekend.

  • They tried to get clarification about the Amy Hennig thing but that was thrown right out the window Animation system from PS3 games was scrapped and rebuilt to allow full analogue movement through 360 degress using real body physics
  • Slip Events (like when he used to grab on handhelds and they break or come out of place) they are not mapped to scenery like in older games but instead are dependent on the angle and distance of the jump also less stable ones will break easier if they do you need to take another route
  • Drakes Piton which is similar to Lara’s Pickaxe from Tomb Raider differs from the latter because its designed to empower freedom
  • The grapple points are fixed but allow Drake to swing, rappel, climb or run along and around cliff faces
  • They say Uncharted’s most linear system has become freeform and instead of pushing up on the stick and following a preditermined path path your making your own. They also compared it to solving a puzzle.
  • The enemies have a similar traversal set to drakes and can clamber up ledges and leap gaps in pursuit of the player.
  • Breaking the line of sight by using the foliage or by other means and the enemy will not return to normal patrol patterns and instead seek you out or stay in place while staying in constant communication with each other
  • The combat is a mix of stealth, traversal, melee, and gunplay which is an evolution of what they began building from UC2
  • Tremendous amount of The Last of Us blueprint in UC4 in regards to the combat alternating between stealth and combat is fluid
  • Learned a lesson from Jak II where they designed a level where you Daxter rides a rocket, was kind of upset about how they spent so much time on something you only seen once in the entire game. Came to appreciate adding systems that flow throughout the entire game more
  • Part of ND’s evolution is getting comfortable with systematic approaches, wider layouts and the intergration of Story, Gameplay, music etc
  • Edge thinks its the prettiest game the new gen has produced
  • ND is pleased with the added memory and are taking advantage of it
  • Texture resolution at least quadrupled from UC3
  • Drake wakes to an island shore off the coast of Madagascar waking to a backdrop of procedurally tessalated water, Dynamic wind that moves trees, bushes, Drakes hair (Head and Chest)
  • Up close a system developed by ND and Sony’s Advanced Technology Group offers a more efficient way of making highly detailed surfaces without using performance adaptive tessellation while farther away the studio is relying more on background LOD algorithms more than ever before
  • A physically based shader two years in the making makes materials look like their real world counterparts
  • They were showed a wireframe wall with 100 handholds showing the shape of his body adapting to the shape of the wall as he climbed
  • On PS3 Drake had 250 bones in his model on PS4 800 in his face alone
  • They are over 30 but have locked at 30 for the demo they are gonna try to hit 60 but won’t compromise if they have to lose something that can impact the player experience
  • Druckmann says the adventure has to stand on its own with hints to Drakes character in the older games for people who haven’t played if you have then you understand more of the nuances of Drake and his relationshipsUC3 ending gave them a clean slate dealt with all his present problems so that they could delve into his past
  • 4 years after he’s settled down and retired when he is lured back into the life by his brother sam who he last saw 15 years ago during that time they were bosessed with finding a treasure plundered by Henry Every who ammassed the largest haul over the space of two years in the 17th century its worth half a billion dollars by todays standards
  • Drake moved on but Sam continued looking and came back into his bro’s life with incentive for both of them he has a new lead on Libertalia, Every’s pirate Utopia
  • When they add new characters it has to reflect a facet of the protagonist in a unique way
  • A brother allows them to ask who is Nathan Drake and how has he evolved into the person we see today
  • Sam’s arrival makes it seem as if there is no female foil, Elena is seemingly at home and not really happy with him coming out of retirement and Chloe and Drake when their seperate ways in UC3 third act
  • The only known female in the game at this point is Nadine Ross the leader of the South African Private Military army that patrols the island she was hired by Rafe Adler, another treasure hunter in which Nate and his Bro have history with
  • They’re the enemy but ND doesn’t like to think of them like that, when they are writing these characters they don’t want to write them as cliches so they they just write it as if it were from their POV because those character’s don’t necessarily see themselves as the antagonist
  • They are trying to look at all moments even between cutscenes as a scene; they are thinking in filmic terms but what’s important is how much they can put on the “stick”

The big things to take away from it: The game looks amazing, and will actually offer gameplay additions, along with refinements to the systems already in place. According to Edge, it’s the finest looking game to come out of the new generation of consoles, which is hardly surprising; it is Naughty Dog after all. Uncharted 4, I’d imagine, will be one of Sony’s most important releases this year, and will likely function as a bona fide system seller. It was actually Uncharted that convinced me to buy a PlayStation 3 all those years ago – and a new one is equally likely to sway consumers.

Last Updated: January 19, 2015

26 Comments

  1. Mandom (Umar)

    January 19, 2015 at 10:34

    I hope it incorporates the seamless transition between melee, stealth and gunplay the way TLOU did. Man, TLOU really raised the bar in that regards. That whole shooting rays all over the place even shocked Kojima

    Reply

  2. ToshZA

    January 19, 2015 at 10:35

    Hype level: 0.

    Reply

  3. Hammersteyn

    January 19, 2015 at 10:43

    It’s not like a sequel, it’s more like THE sequel. Like what Empire Strikes Back was to New Hope.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      January 19, 2015 at 11:11

      dun dun dun da da dun da da dunnnnnnn (see what I did there?)

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        January 19, 2015 at 11:19

        XD

        Reply

    • Skyblue

      January 19, 2015 at 12:23

      I dunno, I am yet to finish the two sequels to the first game. I have the full trilogy and really enjoyed the first game but just never seem to get into Uncharted 2. I think I need to remedy that in the coming weeks.

      Reply

      • Jonah Cash

        January 19, 2015 at 12:25

        2 is the best for most people, but I actually like 3 a bit more!! Still my favourite series of all time though!!

        Reply

        • Skyblue

          January 19, 2015 at 12:48

          I didn’t enjoy how the first game veered off into “scary monster/ghost” territory at the end of the story, that felt a bit cheap to me after the rest of the game was so good. I’ll def get cracking on the sequels.

          Reply

          • Jonah Cash

            January 19, 2015 at 13:16

            If you didn’t like the weirdness at the end then hold on to your seat belt in 2!! (They all tend to go full Fringe at the end!!)

          • Skyblue

            January 19, 2015 at 13:22

            Lol, I like that phrase “full Fringe” – into the databank, cheers

  4. Brandon van Reenen

    January 19, 2015 at 10:53

    Yes, but when is it coming out!?

    Reply

  5. Quo Vadis?

    January 19, 2015 at 11:01

    I EVENTUALLY finished TLOU last weekend. What an experience. Judging solely from that, this game is deffo going to be epic, cause, Naughty Dog 😀
    Might even be a pre-order 😛

    Reply

    • Jonah Cash

      January 19, 2015 at 12:18

      The last of us screwed around will all my emotions every 30 minutes on a cycle till the end!! It is my number 2 game of all time!!

      Reply

      • Quo Vadis?

        January 19, 2015 at 12:21

        I only actually started enjoying the game AFTER Bill’s Town and the subsequent f-up of the first encounter with the marauders. Took me a long time to pass that.

        Reply

  6. RinceThis

    January 19, 2015 at 11:13

    So much hype for this!

    Reply

  7. Johnny

    January 19, 2015 at 11:24

    Guys, help please. Where can I get the best deals on a PS 4 these days?

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      January 19, 2015 at 11:38

      Let me send you my bank details, I’ll make a plan for you…

      Jokes aside, have a look on Kalahari, they sometimes have a special, or if you want to pay it off, maybe try FNB (although over the pay-off period, it will cost a bit more)

      Reply

      • Johnny

        January 19, 2015 at 12:22

        Lol, kalahari looks to be the cheapest at the moment, altough game has one + Rugby15 for R6300, where kalahari is R5999, is Rugby15 worth it? (yes im a rugby fan and yes I hate the Bulls too)

        Reply

        • Jonah Cash

          January 19, 2015 at 12:24

          Uhm, it got a 2/10 from the only major site that reviewed it. The problem will always be the licences!! Until one of them can get all the licences off all the big nations I will just sit and wait longer!!

          Reply

        • Skyblue

          January 19, 2015 at 12:45

          Make sure you have enough data available for updates and join PS Plus if you haven’t, it’s the best investment on any PS.

          Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          January 19, 2015 at 13:18

          Not sure about R15, but R5999 seems like a good deal.

          I seem to remember someone saying R15 was a bit of a meh-ish game

          Reply

          • Skyblue

            January 19, 2015 at 13:24

            It’s already available in most BT outlets pre-played section which usually means it’s a dud so soon after release.

    • Jonah Cash

      January 19, 2015 at 12:21

      Orange store had them on sale for R5175-00 yesterday. Might want to start there first, then you can check Takealot, Kalahari and Raru. Try also Game, Makro and BT Games.
      Most of the above can be done on the internet without having to call anyone. But try Orange first, because that is a hell of a good price!!

      Reply

    • Jonah Cash

      January 19, 2015 at 12:23

  8. cloudzn

    January 20, 2015 at 06:16

    I think Amy Hennig left because of jealously

    Reply

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