SPOILERS
Some very interesting info including the story about the sexist focus tester, the use of crates/ladders, what was cut and much more
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture...-nathan-drake-sexism-in-games-20160524?page=7
(Much more in the article)
Some very interesting info including the story about the sexist focus tester, the use of crates/ladders, what was cut and much more
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture...-nathan-drake-sexism-in-games-20160524?page=7
Even though you worked on the first two Uncharted games, with Uncharted 4 you were taking over a series that was started by Amy Hennig, versus The Last of Us, which is something you and your co-director, Bruce Straley, created. When Naughty Dog asked you and Bruce to direct this game, where did you start?
I knew we didn't want to kill Nathan Drake, or kill any of the main characters, because tonally that felt wrong. Even though I knew in marketing we wanted to do everything we can to make people feel like we might.
The way in for me was creating his home life. We know between each game that at the end of the previous adventure he gets together with Elena. At the beginning of the next one, their relationship has fallen apart. What happened? It's kind of hinted at but never quite answered.
Our interpretation is that, in order to make his marriage work, Nate oversteered and decided to give up the life of adventure.
And the game is certainly about their marriage. But is Rocky about Adrian?
The Feminist Frequency review that I just watched, which I actually really enjoyed, talked about this. I disagree with them. They said they didn't like how Elena was handled in the story. That she becomes an obstacle to Nathan, that's she's this wet blanket, and she's the thing that's holding him back.
My interpretation, or at least our intention, is that she's not. The only thing holding Nate back is Nate.
If anything, Elena is trying to urge him to take this Malaysia job, even though it's illegal. The thing that makes Elena the most upset is that he doesn't include her. That's his biggest flaw in the story, that he ends up lying to her.
I don't believe that you weren't nervous. I do believe that you don't make games for them.
I'm always nervous how a game will be received, how successful we'll be, is it going to make its money back. I guess what I meant is that I know we're going to lose some people. I know there are people on NeoGAF right now complaining about the beginning of this game. Because I read some. They hate how slow it is. They don't believe it's really a game until you get to the end of the auction and you get your gun and you start shooting at people. That, to them, is the game. I'm OK if we lose some of those people. Hopefully they're replaced with other people who are intrigued by the more conscious pacing.
You're surfing the comment forums at NeoGAF right now?
That's my sick obsession. You listen to movie directors in interviews, and they can go sit in a theater and get the reaction of people to their movie. We don't have that experience. Sure, I can invite someone over who hasn't played the game and watch them play, but it's not quite the same. Going on NeoGAF or watching Let's Play videos is how I get to experience the game now, and see what works, what doesn't work, how people interpret the material. That, to me, is part of the payoff of making this game. You have to have thick skin. But it can be quite enjoyable.
I've heard that the game was not always a cover shooter.
For most of its development cycle, the first Uncharted was a brawler slash lock-on shooter. There was no aiming. You had a gun, and you could lock on to enemies and shoot at them. But we thought we could create a game that had that kind of pulp-action feel, where you would just run around without having to worry about moving a second analog stick and aiming.
We tried all these minigames – if I have a lock-on, how do I make aiming challenging? Is it timing based? None of those ideas were fun. And we tried them for many, many, many months.
The first iteration was, OK, only when you take cover, we can let you aim. As soon as we put that in, all of a sudden combat became even more engaging. There was an interesting challenge that wasn't there before.
We built a lot of the game, and a lot of story, and then we were like, "Oh my God, we built a really short game. Let's throw a bunch of combat into every environment." To me, playing it back, I still think it's an awesome achievement, but it's a little overstuffed with combat in waves. I think it kind of ruins what has a really beautiful story underneath it. Maybe "ruins" is a bit harsh. But hampers, a little bit.
Uncharted 4 has a trophy called "Ludonarrative Dissonance" for killing 1,000 people. That's a reference to the criticism that Nathan Drake doesn't respond emotionally to all the killing he does.
I told all the people on the team, "This is my proudest moment, the fact that I came up with this trophy on this project." We were conscious to have fewer fights, but it came more from a desire to have a different kind of pacing than to answer the "ludonarrative dissonance" argument.
Because we don't buy into it. I've been trying to dissect it. Why is it that Uncharted triggers this argument, when Indiana Jones doesn't? Is it the number? It can't be just the number, because Indiana Jones kills more people than a normal person does. A normal person kills zero people. And Indiana Jones kills a dozen, at least, over the course of several movies. What about Star Wars? Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, are they some sort of serial killers? They laugh off having killed some stormtroopers. And in The Force Awakens, we see that a stormtrooper can actually repent for the person he is and come around, and there are actually real people under those helmets.
It's a stylized reality where the conflicts are lighter, where death doesn't have the same weight.
We're not trying to make a statement about Third World mercenaries, or the toll of having killed hundreds of people in your life.
(Much more in the article)