Interview with the Uncharted

On the 28th of January, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection for the PS5, at a later date follows an implementation for the PC. Our test is already online, and in it, we set: yes, the thing is perfect!

• PC Games: We start with a slight question: What is your favorite character in Uncharted? You both have to choose one.
• PC Games: I thought already!
• PC Games: So you let yourself grow a mustache?
• PC Games: How was the development process of Uncharted 4 towards Lost Legacy? What did you change? What did you learn?
• PC Games: You mentioned the open areas in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. Did you ever have the plan to make a real Open World Uncharted?
• PC Games: That's a good point. What makes Uncharted because like? The proven formula relies on puzzles, gun play and exploration, including climbing. Many games are exactly the same, but if you hold the controller in your hands, you think to yourself in your games immediately, yes, that's Uncharted. What is that one thing that feels through the Uncharted like Uncharted?
• PC Games: Let's stick to the characters. With Lost Legacy you have proved that Uncharted does not necessarily need Nathan Drake in order to function. But have you gone, at least for the established characters in the world. Would you say that Uncharted needs this familiar element in order to function? Or you could tell a completely new story, and it would still be Uncharted?
• PC Games: Let's get to the PS5 port: Why would you say it was even necessary to make a new version of the games? Both have kept very good technically and are already easily playable on the PS5 by downward compatibility.
• PC Games: You realize that you have put a lot of work into the project. Is that a reason why you have decided against the shared multiplayer of the two PS4 games?
• PC Games: How has Covid-19 affected the development of the Legacy of Thieves Collection? And how does Naughty Dog generally handle the situation?
• PC Games: Naughty Dog have been accused of excessive crunch periods in which employees were exposed to strong stress. What do you say about these allegations? And how does Naughty Dog want to make sure that employees always have a healthy work-life balance in the future?
• PC Games: It seems that the story of Nathan Drakes is more or less completed. But the people can still get enough of uncharted. What's next for the series? Is there any next for the series or has Naughty Dog completed with Uncharted?

But is not that surprising, because as the Collection is already revealed in the name, it is not completely new games, but instead for technically revealed versions of Uncharted 4: a Thief's End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which we have already praised in our original tests in the sky.

How much technically changed, you can see in our graphic comparison. But not only that, we also had the opportunity to chat with the developers in the interview not only in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (Buy Now), but also about the turn, their past, their future - and who the love skills figures The maker themselves are.

Serious topics are also on the table. So we want to know how it was to develop the game during the Corona pandemic, and we ask how the studio deals with the accusation, to have exposed employees heavy crunch and how to prevent such stress phases in the future. Since much the answer unfortunately expectantly expanded rather spongy.

Our questions asked Kurt Marginal, Co-lead designer of Uncharted 4 and Director of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy , and Shaun Escape, Director of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy .

PC Games: We start with a slight question: What is your favorite character in Uncharted? You both have to choose one.

Shaun Escape: (laughs) I am biased.

Kurt Marginal: (laughs) Say, that's a simple question?

PC Games: I thought already!

But of course Nathan Drake. And I love Sully, he has this me all shit attitude. All the older I will, the more Sully can understand.

PC Games: So you let yourself grow a mustache?

Shaun & Kurt: (laugh)

Shaun: I like many of the figures. Sully is a character that has a fascinating past. And he is someone I would like to explore. I think he is SALTY. He has this fuck the world attitude that is great. But to see him as an old man, reminiscent of an old uncle or grandfather who has his life. And you want to know how his experiences were.

PC Games: How was the development process of Uncharted 4 towards Lost Legacy? What did you change? What did you learn?

Things we did not do in Uncharted 4. One of the great projects was to have an open area where the player can make decisions. And tackle the challenge how we can still make the relationship between the characters convincing. How do we form the relationships? How do we create a linear story, although the player can run around and make what he wants?

We wanted to offer the player side activities while he is in this area and plans everything himself. It felt like a thing that would fit well in uncharted. But how are we associated with the traditional way of linear storytelling.

Designing all these things was fascinating and challenging. And it was an experience we could also use in our games after the Last of Us: Part 2. I'm really proud of our games. And I think we have learned a lot through them.

Shaun: I can only join: There are three things that changed between Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. There was our personal development, our new jobs have brought big challenges. We have never accompanied a project until the end.

To the games themselves: we have used everything we have learned from Uncharted 4 to build in Lost Legacy. I believe the biggest and scary challenge was to meet an established franchise as uncharted. We wanted to [in Lost Legacy] that Chloe can compete as the main actress in her first solo adventure with Nathan Drake.

That was a great, but also scary experience: How do we take an established world with a very well known main character and tell the story of a new home character in this world?

PC Games: You mentioned the open areas in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. Did you ever have the plan to make a real Open World Uncharted?

Kurt: We talked about many things when we were in the early pre-production phase before we started developing. We talked about various characters that we can use as main characters before we decided for Chloe.

There were also considerations, like an open-world Uncharted might look like. We found a balance to throw everything overboard not what makes Uncharted and still experimenting World Idea Open in Lost Legacy with. It was to create a big challenge, this open area.

We always wanted to tell yet another story, different characters and interpersonal relationships' justice that the game through developing. And we wanted to implement still have great action scenes and blockbuster moments. This has been felt by the right mix for the game.

Shaun: I think we will continue to explore this idea and with larger areas or Open Worlds, or whatever you want to call it, experiment. All these and other ideas are a blank canvas that allows us to tell great stories to create complex characters to make them interact and increase the speed of play or decrease, depending on how we use our options.

Kurt: linearity is to advance a tool that we use to tell the story and accelerate. So if we make a huge, non-linear section, we need to include him very specific in the story so that it makes sense and does not affect the pace. The players finally have expectations of how Uncharted has to look. Although an open-world Uncharted sounds great, but in many ways would no longer Uncharted. At least was the during the development for us.

PC Games: That's a good point. What makes Uncharted because like? The proven formula relies on puzzles, gun play and exploration, including climbing. Many games are exactly the same, but if you hold the controller in your hands, you think to yourself in your games immediately, yes, that's Uncharted. What is that one thing that feels through the Uncharted like Uncharted?

Shaun: The heart. I believe that is the key. And I experience that just again in 4K on the PS5. The great textures, higher frame rate. I spoke yesterday with Kurt about it. They are you can handle some things literally, so real.

But in the end the following applies: The history, the struggles, the complexity of the characters, what drives them and how they fight against all odds... That makes Uncharted out. They are ordinary people who accomplish heroic deeds, they just survive as yet never lose their sense of humor. I think the secret ingredient that makes Uncharted is for me to Uncharted.

Kurt: If we describe the games that Naughty Dog makes, we often call them character action games. So they are called by us since the days of Crash Bandicoot and JAK and Baxter. Character action game says a lot. The characters are the focus of their relations, which are at least as important as the gameplay mechanics.

The characters are the opposite of the gameplay, which brings the game into balance. It depends on the right mix. This can be called Uncharted formula, but it is not very formulaic. And we always try to develop it, to push the envelope and try new things. But at its core is about the characters and their relationships.

PC Games: Let's stick to the characters. With Lost Legacy you have proved that Uncharted does not necessarily need Nathan Drake in order to function. But have you gone, at least for the established characters in the world. Would you say that Uncharted needs this familiar element in order to function? Or you could tell a completely new story, and it would still be Uncharted?

Kurt: When I say characters, I mean not specific characters from the cast that we already know and love, but that the character I play, is important. And that I care about the characters with whom I interact. They have their own stories and developments, which they follow in the course of the game.

Shaun: I believe that the world can exist independently of the characters that we know to date and will. Nevertheless, I think it's great to have these characters and learn something about them. Because we already have an interesting pool of characters that I like to explore and from which I would like to see more.

Apart from that, we always introduce new characters and villains and I think the world of Uncharted is much larger than the stories we have told before. Our hope for the future that we build on this and just as popular characters like Nathan and Chloe can create in the extended world of Uncharted.

PC Games: Let's get to the PS5 port: Why would you say it was even necessary to make a new version of the games? Both have kept very good technically and are already easily playable on the PS5 by downward compatibility.

Kurt: When we saw the PS5 for the first time and kept them in our hands, we really wanted to make new the best possible versions of the games for the console. There are things that would have not been possible on the PS4. The loading times are not noticeable and the representation of 60 or even 120 pictures per second did not exist with uncharted so before either.

The improvements in terms of audio on the PS5 are indescribable, as well as the features of the danseuse controller, which is really a Game changer. We have developed the entire experience for the PS5 version of these two games from scratch.

It was really exciting to work with these new technologies and to use the different possibilities of the PS5 controller. Allowing an additional immersion level, and immersion is all for us. The player should feel as if he is part of this story, and that is a great technical challenge, even with the possibilities of the PS5 in the hindquarters.

The PS4 would never have been able to handle what we do with the PS5 versions of the games. The quality of the animations is twice or triple as high as on the PS4, and this applies to every single animation in the game. Each figure model in the game is new.

There are indeed unlockable models of characters in the game and that are calculated in the gallery at the highest resolution. There (in the PS4 version) you can see every little detail. On the PS5 we use these models for the normal game. So if you go into the photoanodes and clean, you can see exactly the same as in the menu. You will see how much work and love everyone from our team has put into the game when you see all these details.

Shaun: The PS5 is the best way to experience the games. It's breathtaking. I played Lost Legacy last night and literally dropped the chin load. Already the opening scene in which you see the smallest details on Chloe's collar. It shimmers as if you could touch it. It's crazy. This scene is as if you really were in India.

And then the feeling to play with dual sense, the feel! You drive through river planes, the jungle of West ghats, it is as if you feel the ground. You feel like the tires slide on the wet ground. I made donuts in the mud, that was great. Then changing between the weapons, you really feel the difference between the 12 Gauge shotgun and the P90X assault rifle.

That feels fantastic. That raises the story and just everything you experience on a new level. For me, it is an incredibly fluid experience with a once again improved story experience. PS5 is just the best platform to play these stories and experience the characters. I wish I could experience all this again.

PC Games: You realize that you have put a lot of work into the project. Is that a reason why you have decided against the shared multiplayer of the two PS4 games?

Kurt: We wanted to focus on bringing the stories to the PS5. Immersion, the new degree of detail in all aspects, on it was the focus.

PC Games: How has Covid-19 affected the development of the Legacy of Thieves Collection? And how does Naughty Dog generally handle the situation?

Kurt: That was and is a heavy time, not just for us. We had some time to get used to work from home. The final phase of the development of US Part 2 was already from home office. The Legacy of Thieves Collection was 100 percent from home. We are now working on a hybrid mode so that part of the employees can go back to the office.

We had to develop completely new ways of working because people had to stay home. Every developer has to fight with it. We were really important to us to develop this game in a healthy way and to ensure that the effort would not exceed our resources and our timeframe. That was with our biggest focus. All that we first had to learn.

Shaun: This also speaks for our great team. But to return to the Kurt's point: The protection of our teams is the focus. There are hard times and people have to adapt to constant changes in real time. Some areas of the team have even dear and concentrated worked home.

But there are other challenges such as the speed of the internet, the download speed and such things that influence every developer. Despite everything, I think Covid and the pandemic have also influenced us positively. It has brought us to rethink our ways of working, in some way better, knowing where our weaknesses are to work up these weaknesses and to strengthen them.

My positive view of this time is that there is the opportunity to learn to improve and grow as a team. We look forward to the future positively.

PC Games: Naughty Dog have been accused of excessive crunch periods in which employees were exposed to strong stress. What do you say about these allegations? And how does Naughty Dog want to make sure that employees always have a healthy work-life balance in the future?

Shaun: I'm great proud of Naughty Dog and the extensive measures taken to protect the team. And I'm proud to be part of the team. And I can say that all, up to the top leadership sideways, under all circumstances want to ensure that the team is protected and can make great games on a healthy way.

That should stay that way in the future. Of course, we always learn. I mean, with us there are extremely talented designers who place insane benefits on the day. Sometimes they get lost in small things, and we are here, so that does not taste and to make sure people know when it's time to insert urgently needed breaks.

Revision or even a burnout neither help the employee nor the studio, so that's a great focus for us. Our company to grow so fast to see is a positive and exciting change for the future of our developments.

PC Games: It seems that the story of Nathan Drakes is more or less completed. But the people can still get enough of uncharted. What's next for the series? Is there any next for the series or has Naughty Dog completed with Uncharted?

Shaun: Nothing is over forever. Everyone loves the world of Uncharted. But I can not tell you anything about the foreseeable future of Uncharted, but of course the series is very important to us. We are also huge uncharted fans, so never say never!