Uncharted 4.

[mobias]

I suppose for a few people this will be one of the reasons they got a PS4. 15 minutes of new footage has finally been revealed in Las Vegas today. It looks mightily impressive if just more of the same old in terms of the gameplay. I guess thats what people want though. Its not quite into the uncanny valley territory the first trailer made it out to be but it still looks good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow2cL-pp6p8

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

That looks pretty amazing.  The combat seems more reminiscent of TLoU's fluid stealth/combat mix, but with the verticality of the environments adding an extra, Uncharted-style clambering element.

[biggytitbo]

Enjoyed watching that. It's the only thing that could tempt me to get a ps4.


Even better is the long debate about the graphics in the comments. Gave me a warm glow.

[mobias]

I agree with one of the comments underneath that game graphics are going to plateaux fairly soon and improvements will be more noticeable elsewhere in any given game such as in frame rate, physics, A.I and and general game size. The strive for photorealism is fairly banal in video games. Playing COD Modern Warfare really proved that to me. Highly detailed but much more stylised is far prettier to look at. 

[Onken]

Game Informer published some really great developer videos interviews when they had No Man's Sky as their front cover last month. Uncharted 4 looks to be getting the same treatment. I can't wait to hear more insight from Naughty Dog about possibly my favourite series. Check out the YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpm9FEKO9vs

(This thread needs a tonne of images)

[Onken]

• Porting The Last of Us to PS4 helped Uncharted 4's development
  
• Small team working on it since Uncharted 3's development ended, half the team moved to U4 after TLOU and the rest after Left Behind.
  
• Takes places three years after U3.
  
• At the start of U4 Drake is living an happy life with Elena, then Sam appears.
  
• Drake thought Sam was dead.
  
• Sam's life depends on him finding an artifact from Henry Avery.
  
• Drake feels indebted of his brother and he can't resist getting back on treasure hunting.
  
• Story takes Drake and Sam to Libertalia: "a mythic Madagascar colony purportedly founded by pirates."
  
• You're not going to spend the whole game on the island, snowy and urban environments teased.
  
• There are two rival hunters, Rafe and Nadine.
  
• Rafe is a very different treasure hunter than Drake, with different morale and approach.
  
• Nadine owns a private military company in South Africa.
  
• Villains will play a bigger role this time.
  
• "The lack of Sam being in Nathan life for so long is what's driven him in the last games."
  
• Sam is five years older than Drake.
  
• Elena and Sully might come back.
  
• Sam is even more reckless than Drake.
  
• Sam is jealous of Drake, sees him as the "better at everything little brother"
  
• Lots of rivalry between them.
  
• Naugty Dog declined to talk about Drake and Sam's past.
  
• Artifacts (collectibles) may contain notes pointing to more treasures/artifacts.
  
• Enemies can grab your leg if you try to push them over ledges.
  
• More tools besides Rope and Piton (metal spike). They're not ready to talk about them yet.
  
• ND Wants to to incorporate the tools into puzzles.
  
• GI saw an extended demo with a new scene. Drake is beaten down while Sam is rested, they start arguing the existance of the Avery secret, then something catches Drake's eye, he moves forward, pull some foliage, revealing a gray monument with a carving.
  
• Focusing on navigational freedom for this entry.
  
• Shown multiple paths, one finding an extra cave, another bypassing a group of enemies.
  
• There are plenty of side stories if you're looking for them.
  
• In the demo they shown Drake taking a more riskier climbing route, that almost makes him fall into the sea.
  
• All paths have consequences, there's no "golden path."
  
• There's an overhauled A.I system.
  
• They compared Sam's A.I to Ellie, but says Sam is a grown up treasure hunter, so he's much stronger than Ellie.
  
• They're trying to "explore what it's like to be with somebody as capable of Nathan Drake."
  
• ND did not give a straight answer if this is Drake last adventure.
  
• There's still plenty of humour in the game.
  
• The concept of the set pieces is "What's something impactful that we can do to switch expectations and how can we have it emotionally charged?"

some highlights from the Game Informer magazine article.

[Onken]

Comparing Uncharted 4's Gameplay to The Last of Us

Game Informer 30 minute interview with the game and creative directors.

They've set a high bar to follow.

[mobias]

I was hearing form a games dev friend of mine last night that Sony apparently wanted to annualise the Uncharted franchise but Naughty Dog said they'd quite rightly abandon it if they tried to do that. I can barely imagine how bad a yearly version of Uncharted might be.

[Onken]

EXCLUSIVE DEMO

An annual Assassins Creed has driven that brand well and truly into the ground.

That's the only equivalent I can make and I'm sure it was only briefly tossed about as an idea.

[Onken]

The rest of the E3 gameplay footage goes up at 7pm on their Twitch channel.

MUD.

http://www.twitch.tv/naughtydog

[brat-sampson]

Hi-res Youtube version :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BPSX38PmIQ

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

I agree with one of the comments underneath that game graphics are going to plateaux fairly soon

nah

maybe on the current gen of potato consoles, but there's plenty of room for graphics to improve

Unreal 4 engine looks incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24

[mobias]

Unreal 4 engine looks incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24

Yeah but good luck rendering an averagely sized game work with that level of detail.  Thats what some people over look. Its not so much that the consoles aren't technically capable of rendering amazing looking graphics its more that studios don't have the money and man power to design worlds with that level of detail with any semblance of size.  At the moment tricks like procedural rendering can give you things like forests and random natural foliage in games like Witcher 3 but I doubt they'll be able to do things that have a very man made design. And if they do I can't imagine it'll look anything other than generic. Not until there's serious advances in AI anyway.


Its for that reason I think things will plateaux soon, certainly for a while anyway. Its a time and man power problem rather than a technical hardware one.

[The Boston Crab]

You only have to look at the relative difference with exponential polygon growth to see that the curve is reaching a plateau. Ten years ago to five years ago was an enormous difference compared with five years ago to present day. Throw in the exponential man power increase necessary and you've got yourself a stalemate. There will be improvements in lighting and particle effects and so on, and frame rate improvements, which will make a difference, but level of model detail is slowing down.

[Onken]

This Uncharted Collection trailer is full of so many happy memories. I already have it preordered digitally and can't wait to platinum all three of them again. If I had to chose between Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us 2 I'd side with Nathan Drake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mH2SVyBMAQ

[mobias]

What was the first Uncharted like? I never played it. Uncharted 3 had a few great set pieces like the capsizing boat scene but was otherwise curiously forgettable, I can't even remember the story I don't think. The second one is just one amazing set piece after another. I always thought the ending when they finally get to Shambala was a bit of a let down though.

Not sure I'll get this. My gaming money next month will be going to Mad Max if it gets decent reviews.

[QRDL]

What was the first Uncharted like? I never played it. Uncharted 3 had a few great set pieces like the capsizing boat scene but was otherwise curiously forgettable, I can't even remember the story I don't think. The second one is just one amazing set piece after another. I always thought the ending when they finally get to Shambala was a bit of a let down though.

Not sure I'll get this. My gaming money next month will be going to Mad Max if it gets decent reviews.

I played it first having never before heard about the title and found it engrossing. The second one was even better, but another bombastic finale made me kind of apprehensive before the third installment. Unfortunately, it was even worse than I expected. It was kind of varied and enjoyable up until the plane crash and the desert city, but everything after that stayed in my memory as a series of similar shooting arenas. Overall: 2 > 1 >> 3, but I have no idea if I would feel the same if I played them in a different order.

[Onken]

Drake's Fortune was the first game I bought for the PS3 after outgrowing my original Wii. At the time it didn't receive much attention or the highest praise but it completely blew me away and remains one of my all time favourites. I completed it two or three times the first time round and then multiple times again when it was patched for trophy support. Ranking the Uncharted trilogy is a bit like ordering the Back to the Future films when the truth is they're all actually brilliant and people just feel it a necessity to moan.

[biggytitbo]

I think 1 is probably the best of them, although it looks a bit shakey at times now it still holds up technically. I think it's slightly better paced and has more variety than 2, which has too many overly long firefights. 2's set pieces are better though, of course.


Tedhnically 3 is the best and in its parts is still good but for some reason it doesn't hold together. I think my main objection is I really really hated the hallucgenic bollocks and the levels with the magic men that are all imaginary. Hate shit like that, Uncharted should always be rooted in reality.

[Consignia]

Hate shit like that, Uncharted should always be rooted in reality.

With zombie Spaniards and monster yeti people in 1 and 2, respectively? 3 was the only one that didn't have any supernatural stuff in it, just hallucinations. Well the Vita one didn't either, for that matter.

I'll be honest; I liked 1 and the Vita one, loved 2, but 3 I struggled to finish. I guess it was just ennui with the whole thing.

[chand]

With zombie Spaniards and monster yeti people in 1 and 2, respectively?

Yeah, Uncharted 1 turns into a proto-Last Of Us zombie game near the end, you end up in some grimy concrete building full of rusty pipes battling hordes of fast zombies.

I replayed Uncharted 3 recently and it was great, plenty of good stuff like the derelict shipyard and the chateau. But it did try my patience a bit during the long stay in a Syrian citadel rammed with snipers where your burly London bouncer mate starts wigging out and punching you. The bit where you fall out of a plane and have to trudge the desert for ages is a fairly indulgent bit of scene-setting too. The bit towards the end I have mixed feelings about, because I love the opulent city environments but I hated the goddam Djinn.

[madhair60]

Only got myself a PS3 a short while ago and the first game I finished on it was Uncharted 2.  I thought it was brilliant and astonishing in places (the collapsing hotel, the train), with a few annoying longeurs (one of the gun battles at the monastery is insanely long and hard) and trial-and-error bits (jumping from car to car).

[biggytitbo]

With zombie Spaniards and monster yeti people in 1 and 2, respectively? 3 was the only one that didn't have any supernatural stuff in it, just hallucinations. Well the Vita one didn't either, for that matter.

I'll be honest; I liked 1 and the Vita one, loved 2, but 3 I struggled to finish. I guess it was just ennui with the whole thing.

I know Uncharted is fantasy but its set in the real tangible world, not a dream/hallucination etc. I didn't finish U3 for a year after I got it because I got so fed up with those sequences.

[Thursday]

What annoys me more than the supernatural bits of Uncharted is when you shoot a man in the head with a shotgun 5 times and they don't die.

[Thursday]

Also I hated that burning Chateau in Uncharted 3 where hordes enemies just decided to stick around, basically sacrificing their own lives to kill you.

They could have just  surrounded the outside areas, knowing you'd have to come that way anyway.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Also I hated that burning Chateau in Uncharted 3 where hordes enemies just decided to stick around, basically sacrificing their own lives to kill you.

They could have just  surrounded the outside areas, knowing you'd have to come that way anyway.

That's a complaint I have we each Uncharted game. You climb, crawl and sneak through to what look like the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world and there's a shitload of blokes with guns sitting there who have just rocked up on a Richmond's Coach.

[chand]

Yeah, it's obviously stupid that there are loads of enemies in these remote areas, but I feel like the games would be less interesting if you just wandered around a jungle uninterruptedly pulling levers and making statues rotate.

[Consignia]

Not sure, I find the jumping around exploring parts more fun than the racial cleansing shooty parts.

[Thursday]

Yeah I'm clearly not in the majority, so I can't begrudge them for making the game more people want, but I wish it was balanced more like old Tomb Raider, where exploration, platforming and puzzles made up the majority of the game, and the combat was more of a palate cleanser to break these bits up and keep you on your toes.

There's other games that do the 3rd person shoot-em up thing better so I wish Uncharted and new Tomb Raider would focus on the parts that make them more unique.

But I guess they wouldn't get the sales and so wouldn't get the same budget if they did.

[Consignia]

I don't mind Uncharted doing the shooty parts, even in their frequency. It's part of what makes Uncharted Uncharted. But I do prefer the adventury parts, mainly because I don't like shooting. But they are tolerable.