That too.
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The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - The Evolution of a Franchise
- Thread starter Åkami
- Start date
That too.
indigo-cyclops
Member
Watching his fingers subtly move against the rocks is mesmerizing. Insane how good this really is from a technical standpoint. Can't wait for the game.
SolidSnakex
Member
What more can you really say about it? They can spend a lot talking about Uncharted 1 because it obviously laid the foundation for the series. Uncharted 2 took that, polished it, and then elevated the playable setpiece higher than any game. So much so that you had EA once mention that one of their teams recreated the train sequence just to see if they could pull it off. Then there's Uncharted 3 which was...bigger. It really didn't bring much new to the series. It more or less just built off of U2. So just describing it as doing everything bigger is a pretty accurate description.
TimeEffect
Member
That Nate gif is like the perfect reaction gif to expressing how Ill likely feel after finishing UC4.
I kind of wonder if the UC2 crew really wanted to do UC4 so that they could do a proper sequel to their game. I know they didnt work on UC3, and maybe in their heads this is the trilogy that they need to do so that they can move on to a new IP.
I sure hope we'll be able to get 3 new ND games this gen.
I kind of wonder if the UC2 crew really wanted to do UC4 so that they could do a proper sequel to their game. I know they didnt work on UC3, and maybe in their heads this is the trilogy that they need to do so that they can move on to a new IP.
I sure hope we'll be able to get 3 new ND games this gen.
Primethius
Banned
Tried my hand at making a couple of higher quality gifs:
But the colors and speed are all messed up. Dammit, I'm a scrub!
But the colors and speed are all messed up. Dammit, I'm a scrub!
Lys Skygge
Member
I actually like seeing them a bit slowerTried my hand at making a couple of higher quality gifs:
But the colors and speed are all messed up. Dammit, I'm a scrub!
Goddamn it, I knew I should have used even more hyperbole in my post.7/10 - you're too nice to troll Jav
GravityInsanity
Member
There's one thing that people seem to never notice is that Nates facial model has been changed 2 times now.
For example:
The reveal:
1st change:
2nd change: Current facial model. It was first reveal at E3 last year. I'm using the Story Trailer version.
For example:
The reveal:
1st change:
2nd change: Current facial model. It was first reveal at E3 last year. I'm using the Story Trailer version.
Psychological Intellect
Banned
angles, how do they work
Jigolo
Member
wowowow
ShutterMunster
Junior Member
Seriously. Angles and lighting make all the difference. I don't know how many times people can stress that until it sinks in.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Basically. Its like if the Souls franchise was doing a retrospective. Demon's would be the first one, Dark 1 would be the refined consensus favorite, Bloodborne is the Last of Us style spin-off, and Dark Souls 3 is the next-gen conclusion that take everything they learned to the next level
like where do you fit Dark Souls 2/Uncharted 3 in there? "This one was more of the same and a lot of people didn't like it much as the last one"
Mouth massage boyssss
N A T E B O Y Z
OfTheOverflow
Member
Did anyone else feel the Archer/Babou/Lana dynamic with the clip of Nate fascinated by the Lemur with Sully not caring hahaha
Chris Metal
Member
The tree is better in Drake's Fortune...
vs
wow
He's standing in front of a cave in the U4 gif. No trees. Unless you're comparing trees and caves, which is like comparing apples and caves.
Chris Metal
Member
The joke just flew on by didn't it? How can something look better in comparison relative to itself if there is nothing to compare against... A tree against a tree.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Idk man. Those family glimpses we've seen in UC4 is the only way I buy that "everyman" thing. Actually it would've been neat for the series to start like that but hindsight is 20/20.
They aren't exactly normal dudes either. Considering his upbringing i'm hesitant to accept the every dude thing compared to others who literally lived a normal life until the inciting incident that made them become a video game protagonist hero, to name a more egregious example that i'm not super fond of Delsin Rowe is a "pretty normal dude" in comparison because he has literally no experience as an action game hero, or Alan Wake, you see where i'm going with these?
Pristine_Condition
Member
Uncharted 2 had little moments like this that really humanized the characters. Marco Polo in the pool? The village scene, petting the ox? Those moments of rest/exploration/comedy are a big part of why everyone praised the pacing of Uncharted 2 so much at the time.
So I'd say those moments in TLOU were a natural progression with Naughty Dog realizing the value of those little scenes and really emphasizing the importance of their inclusion.
You aren't getting it. It's not his past or his upbringing, it's his characterization (and you gotta put things into context when it comes to video games, especially in comparison to when the first Uncharted came out).
An every man action hero doesn't mean they were literally an average guy before the inciting incident, it more means they react and respond to the situations in the film in the way "every man" would. They have flaws, they question what's going on, they get hurt, they screw up, etc. All these things start to add up so rather than the viewer simply thinking "Man, that hero is so damn cool and perfect I want to be them" they think "Man, he's not perfect. He has the same reaction I would have to that situation. He didn't make that jump. He's not that different from me," which then let's them get drawn more into the story via seeing them self in the character. The entire conceit of the series is that they are taking this kind of every man hero and the action/adventure movie surrounding them and making them a playable video game.
John McClane gets cranky. He steps on glass with his bare feet and he bleeds. He gets tired. Indiana Jones misses the jump. He gets punched. He triggers the trap and has to run from the boulder. He gets the artifact stolen from him after the opening scene. They aren't the type of guys who walk away from the explosion looking all cool. They're the type of guys who get knocked on their ass from the explosion. These type of characters stand in contrast to the likes of Arnold in Commando, or Chow Yun-Fat in Hard Boiled.
Now, you take Nathan Drake, circa Uncharted: Drake's Fortune in 2007, and compare him to the average big video game hero of the time. Someone like, say, Master Chief, who is the ultimate cool badass. Or Kratos, who is the ultimate cool badass. Or even Link, who is kind of a blank slate, standard, uber competent hero.
Then here comes Nathan Drake, who has a half tucked in shirt and jeans. Who stumbles when he jumps off a small cliff. Who flinches when enemies are shooting at him. Who gets punched and knocked on his ass. Who shields his eyes from hot flames. Who vocalizes stuff the player is already thinking about a scenario in the same way those movie heroes do. "Oh great, a helicopter?!" "Ugh, another cliff? Really?" Everything from the dialog of not just Nate but other characters, to the blocking/staging of cutscenes, to the gameplay animations and incidental idle animations all work to reinforce this idea.
All of this stuff was a big deal at the time the first game released, because it was a fairly new thing for a video game. At the time, compared to the standard video game hero, Nathan Drake was absolutely a "normal guy." That's less true today partly because Uncharted was influential to the point that this kind of stuff is now more common in video games, and because games are maturing in ways that allow a much larger range of protagonists of many different types.
ShutterMunster
Junior Member
Bravo, Griffy. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
TissueBox
Member
People also forget that this was optimized to the fullest and, frankly, imo, the most successful in Left Behind. Even in TLOU I felt the action gameplay was a bit much in comparison to the adventure part; in Left Behind, the pace, interactions, and core story are much more characterized by each other, I think, and was arguably ND's best work yet, on a purely auteur-istic standpoint. That was what gave (and gives) me hope for UC4. The knowledge that something like that is something they could do in a compelling way, with a sturdy hand, and without compromising. Hopefully, anyway.
brickarts295
Member
This is what happens when you take away 30fps. You get unholy stuff like this running on almost 3 year old machine.
Agreed.
Although I expect to see something like this not in Uncharted 4's main game, but in its already-announced story DLC. They've always talked about how Left Behind became the perfect space for experimentation in both gameplay and narrative, and I anticipate the same is going to happen in Uncharted 4's Story DLC.
Oh they went to town with this stuff in Left Behind, while re purposing the usually violent mechanics of shooting and brick throwing into tools for building relationships. Neil actually talked about adapting some of these concepts for UC4.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-01-20-naughty-dogs-neil-druckmann-on-why-uncharted-has-to-end
generic_username
I switched to an alt account to ditch my embarrassing tag so I could be an embarrassing Naughty Dog fanboy in peace. Ask me anything!
I am in the opposite camp. While the walk and talk etc are cute moments, it fails to keep me engaged on repeat playthroughs and can hurt the game's pacing. I still think character beats should be told through optional user initiated actions ( show a triangle symbol on top of the character, I will press it on my first playthrough and ignore it on my second,) rather than forced walk and talk scenarios or injured and slowly move the player for a few minutes with zero challenge scenarios that ND games can sometimes be guilty of doing. That is not to say those sequences can never work. UC2's chapter 16 is masterful irrespective of which playthrough it is because it perfectly punctuates the overdose of action in the prior chapters ( A lot of games including ND's still live in the shadow of UC2's masterful pacing ). It is a very fine line and more often than not I would prefer ND to always keep providing the player with interesting challenges rather than these forced walking and talking scenarios even if the latter is an easier way to infuse personality to these characters.
They do but it's likely still in early preproduction and may even be on hiatus while they are currently crunching.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
All well and fine, but nathan Drake is not really responding to situations in the same way that an every man would. Like just because he yells "No no no" or "ohhhh crap!" during some of these situations doesn't sell the everyman thing for me because he's still making it through in the most extreme incredibly lucky fashion possible and later in the series is the one initiating the conflicts. Like, the dude gets up from a table and a villain decides to flee that's how dangerous he is as a person.
Yea but they're still action heroes. I mean with all the shootouts Drake has gotten into he's firmly inbetween Indiana and an invincible commando considering literal armies can't kill him.
I understand what they're going for and the context at the series inception, i'm just not buying it considering the current climate of gaming.
Like I said above the current gaming climate is why I'm believing it less when we have all these characters who absolutely are just, normal people put in insane situations, to the point where a guy like Drake, even with animations that emphasize his derpiness doesn't seem like an everyday person.
ShutterMunster
Junior Member
You either still don't understand what an everyman is or you believe the concept is BS. Nathan Drake is cut from the same cloth McClane, Indy, Ripley, Rick Grimes, and others. Being an everyman doesn't exclude you from being a hero.
OrbitalBeard
Member
This is what I'm most excited about. I really hope we get a new IP from Naughty Dog this generation, in addition to U4 and TLoU 2.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I realize this and never stated the opposite. I feel there's a difference between the type of people like Indy and Ripley, and Nathan Drake. But that could be due to the difference in mediums.
wapplew
Member
Didn't someone from ND said there were 2 others project in concept phase?
Assume one of them is TLOU related, that other project is...
Crash
New SSM studio is even better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlXFxEEqH2g
TissueBox
Member
It's a hard sell. Left Behind is much more storytelling than story beat, and it does clog up the direction as a result; how much time you spend pushing on the stick instead of making calculated decisions in a flexible, meaningfully dynamic gamespace is counteractive, to a degree, because it treads closely to becoming a dull corridor walker, as opposed to shooter.
But that's where the dilemma becomes subjective, I think, at least in some way. Whereas replay value can be gathered from objectives that utilize sensible skill-based mechanics, (ie combat, puzzles, what we know and love), the same can be said for objective-less virtual novels; the matter comes down to preference, and in the end, I think that's what makes Left Behind a tad special, and why it sits at such a strange little corner in the modern AAA market.
It's Uncharted in reverse, but in that distinctly ND way; whereas Uncharted's an action-adventure game at its foundation with story for support, Left Behind is a story at its foundation with creative game elements which support that. The same approach to TLOU, except this time, up to eleven, and more heavily iterated (and within a much shorter runtime). The shooting and stealth gameplay remain, and so do the challenges, but in a much more muffled tone. Is that the best way to do it? No, it's still a bit imbalanced and as far as fair storytelling and intelligent gameplay that go hand-in-hand go, the likes of Valve and Black Isle are still at the top and less telegraphed. But in place of actual core, in-depth gameplay is a strong artistic vision that breathes through its presentation -- it's a new type of "AAA game" (that's also not really AAA, but as close as you're gonna get), one that embraces linearity in order to maximize character. It's a risky move, and in its early stages; I don't believe it will be perfected now. But maybe one day, and that's why Left Behind (not to mention The Last of Us) is a promising game -- it actually didn't turn out all that bad.
That said, I do still agree with you on the case of UC2's pacing not being topped. That was ND's masterstroke, the apex of cinematic action. They had the right pinch of story with the right, er, sort of overblown, in-your-face high-octane setpiece mindlessness to accompany it and -- imo, most importantly -- the little moments ("little" here meaning "not involving exploding helicopters or throwing trains down cliffs") sprinkled in between. What separates it from the good and places it at great was how so much of it was practically accident -- the right people worked together at the right time and did the right stuff and that's how Uncharted 2, and thus its keenly organic charm, was born. Not from pretense, but from routine. And with that they'd reached their peak.
Until TLOU rolled along, and they set their sights away from cinematic action, and onto the perfection of cinematic narrative, in general. As you said, you're in the opposite camp in regards to Left Behind, and that's reasonable -- it's designed differently and won't appeal to the same tastes. But in the end, I believe that's where the main divide between it and its predecessors starts and ends; where some people could have called Uncharted a corridor shooter with something special, others could call Left Behind a corridor walker with something just as special; a reverse AAA action-adventure game for a still-growing breed of AAA player that may or may not represent something controversial in the current industry, but atm, may just be breaking new ground -- sure, not the first to make a crack at it, but definitely the one with most powerful swing so far.
And yep, remember that one. It was quite a read but it left me raising an eyebrow in anticipation. It's one of those things...one might feel this way about it, another might feel something different, but if it goes right, it will probably help add just a bit more umph to UC4's punch. Here's to the team nailing it!
Indeed, though I think a Doughnut Drake origin side story would be most essential. A melodramatic hero tragedy, beginning with Drake's fall into doughnut addiction. You scour a nearby town for doughnut shops, only to realize you have no money. You are then suddenly given the choice of asking the other customers for some, or stealing. You look at your gun, but no, you can't possibly do that. You sigh, generating distractingly good facial animations. To think that, in the end, all that mass murdering did was give you high cholesterol.
Not to mention the shadow dithering. I mean, it looks great, but it's not the second coming of c... I mean Christ.
Psychological Intellect
Banned
but what about that original teaser than ran at 60fps?
GravityInsanity
Member
Game wasn't near halfway done yet.
Psychological Intellect
Banned
yeah, makes it weirder when they said the game was gonna be 1080p/60. Seems like they were suuuuuuuper early at that point to make that kind of announcement/target
Wishmaster92
Member
The entirety of the teaser could only dream of having the range of animations this short segment has.
Fredrik
Member
I simply think they were hyping up 60fps to better sell The Last of Us Remastered and Nathan Drake Collection, they were all about pointing out how much better games were at 60fps back then.
I wish they still thought that, I'm a 60fps guy, and 60fps obviously looks better in motion etc, but honestly, I don't think it's super important for the gameplay in this genre, I managed to enjoy Rise of the Tomb Raider enough to put it on my GOTY list even though it's 30fps so I'm sure I'll enjoy Uncharted 4 too.