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New Uncharted 4 Amy Hennig details emerge and departure from Naughty Dog
- Thread starter dcelw540
- Start date
I don't really have a problem with people aggregating juicy Uncharted 4 details from my book, but the problem here is that stuff is being misinterpreted. A lot of these ideas (like the ballroom dancing mechanic) weren't necessarily going to be part of the original version of Uncharted 4 -- Naughty Dog's designers were just prototyping them and trying to see what would work.
One of the reasons for the directorial shift, according to people I spoke with, was that there were too many prototypes floating around and nobody was making strong decisions about what to cut and what to implement. That's why Naughty Dog made the change in the first place -- because the game wasn't in great shape. It's impossible to say that "Amy Hennig's Uncharted 4" would have looked like this, because we have no idea what would have made the final cut.
If you want the real, complete story, please do check out Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062651234/?tag=neogaf0e-20
One of the reasons for the directorial shift, according to people I spoke with, was that there were too many prototypes floating around and nobody was making strong decisions about what to cut and what to implement. That's why Naughty Dog made the change in the first place -- because the game wasn't in great shape. It's impossible to say that "Amy Hennig's Uncharted 4" would have looked like this, because we have no idea what would have made the final cut.
If you want the real, complete story, please do check out Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062651234/?tag=neogaf0e-20
bryanee
Member
Just saw on Amazon UK that its out in October. Just pre-ordered.
Nadine sucks, but opinions and such.
It's also available now on Kindle, if that's an option. I find it more convenient in any case.
Kuriboi2k6
Member
No Nadine, no DICE!
She was definitely the most interesting character in the mix of UC4
She was definitely the most interesting character in the mix of UC4
demosthenes
Member
I like what we got versus this.
bryanee
Member
I like to have a physical book.
That's sort of how I feel, neither version sounds all that appealing to me.
I simply didn't care for the brother angle at all. Didn't like the idea of introducing Sam in (what is supposedly) the final Uncharted game and making him a key focus of the story.
The best part of UC4 was by far the epilogue, I wish it would've had more moments like that which focused on the OG characters and closed out their stories.
gundamkyoukai
Member
That is rather interesting .
Come on now you know that's not the case here. The lockpicking thing is using an ALREADY EXISTING mechanic in the game, while the dancing mini game sounds as if it would require developing new mechanics from the ground up for something that would only be used once.
Using the left trigger to focus your vision, which is what you do when lockpicking, is a mechanic that you use throughout the entirety of Uncharted 4's campaign. I don't imagine you'll be playing a dancing minigame while exploring for a treasure in a long-lost pirate city though.
She wasnt really that interesting in 4 mostly for being underrused. In lost legacy she was good though.
Nightengale
Member
The lack of strong and decisive leadership is pretty much why Neil/Bruce decided that they have to see the whole game through to the end. During the course of the development, there were none who could step up to take over the leadership of the project.
IIRC Druckmann/Straley wanted this in, but explained that they couldn't tutorialise it, it was proving too difficult to create the gameplay language for it and keep players on the right page.
Callibretto
Member
There's no denying imo that Nadine is underused and sidelined by other more important characters in the story. That said, she's a cool character and her 2 scenes fighting with Nathan and later 2v1 fight with Drakes brothers are amazing and so much fun to watch (and play, although its very simple)
It's just a QTE, you just press buttons while watching the animations. Not that different from the final boss or the scripted Nadine fights.
Nightengale
Member
It would've made more sense for explaining why he was never mentioned.
But for him to still turn out to be a long-lost-brother-that-both-sides-never-knew-they-were-siblings? And for that to (presumably) be the main reason that Sam decides to bury a 15-year grudge?
Execution is king, but between the two evils, I'll take what we got.
AudioEppa
Member
I respect everything Amy did for the franchise overall. With that said, Uncharted 4 is my favorite game of all time. I'm happy Neil and Bruce accepted the offer to take over.
The idea of less gunplay, But more melee combat is something I've personally been wanting to see from ND. There's nothing wrong with having both, still. I would like to eventually one day control a character who can use any object around them as a weapon, Or start brawling like a normal person.
It just gets annoying how every character needs to seems like a already trained super soldier. I was never that kind of player who needs to feel like a over powered bad ass to have fun in story games. This is why I loved U4's beginning chapters. Once I finally picked a gun later on, I was like alright, I guess I'm ready shoot something now.
The idea of less gunplay, But more melee combat is something I've personally been wanting to see from ND. There's nothing wrong with having both, still. I would like to eventually one day control a character who can use any object around them as a weapon, Or start brawling like a normal person.
It just gets annoying how every character needs to seems like a already trained super soldier. I was never that kind of player who needs to feel like a over powered bad ass to have fun in story games. This is why I loved U4's beginning chapters. Once I finally picked a gun later on, I was like alright, I guess I'm ready shoot something now.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Truth is that is not something i would expect to happen to Hennig.
Guess it's good that they use TLL to get some new blood going .
It'd be great if a mod could add this to the OP.
The sticking point would be "what relevance does them being brothers bring to the story/finale of Drake?"
Losing all those flashbacks of their interactions and relationship, as well as the foil, are the reason the brother angle had any relevance to Nate's arc. Losing that, why even make them brothers?
So all of this confirms what I thought from the start, Amy's version was the superior version with Druckman taking bits and pieces of her well crafted story and butchering it so he could put his spin on someone's work.
Shame.
All of this, from a story perspective, sounds much more plausible and its a shame we ended up getting what we got. Although not sure if this would have improved anything in the gameplay department.
But it sounds like Sam was supposed to be a scumbag from the start, and they never really fixed that in the final version of this game. Ugh. So much of this makes sense now.
Shame.
All of this, from a story perspective, sounds much more plausible and its a shame we ended up getting what we got. Although not sure if this would have improved anything in the gameplay department.
But it sounds like Sam was supposed to be a scumbag from the start, and they never really fixed that in the final version of this game. Ugh. So much of this makes sense now.
Nightengale
Member
Based on all the ideas thrown around, it's clear that Amy wanted U4 to not just "another Uncharted", and wanted to try out a lot of different ideas to take the franchise forward.
gundamkyoukai
Member
No this not confirm that if you look at jschreier post .
I can understand that but that can get out of hand rather fast .
Then you end up with a game taking long to come out , over budget and sometimes not even that good.
Dragon1893
Member
Based on this I feel that what we got is better.
I'll be wondering about that dance mini game for the rest of my life though.
I'll be wondering about that dance mini game for the rest of my life though.
TissueBox
Member
Good post and I agree with having it in the OP.
I'm also staying far away from this kind of discussion for now as it is a hot button for me, being a diehard Amy Hennig fan and a respecter of Druckmann's successes both and a ND fan since Rings of Power. All I'll say is that the fanbase infighting probably won't do much good especially in prototypical speculative form.
Nightengale
Member
Actually, the whole thing about this being the finale of Drake thing is Neil and Bruce's idea. Their pitch.
The fact that Amy wanted to introduce a brother for Nate, imo, suggested that if Amy had her way... there'd be an Uncharted 5.
Do we know if it was as simple as pressing triangle at the correct moment though? Could have been a bit more involved and they just thought "Yeeeeaaaaah let's just write that whole scene out of the story and not even bother with it".
I think that's the real takeaway here. That they just don't want to bother creating a scenario wherein they had to do something a bit more involved than the mechanics they already had in place.
Also did the game have QTE's in the first place? I remember the game having you tap triangle to open doors and such, but you could just change the options so that you only need to hold triangle. Nadine's fight is crap but that's just the already existing melee combat in use, and the final boss is also just the melee combat with an extra dodge button. It IS an example of doing something for only one sequence and never using it again but it's the final boss fight so I imagine they give these an extra level care.
Lys Skygge
Member
I'm really happy with what we got. Amy's version sounded like it had no direction.
Also, I still don't understand the Sam hate. I think he's a great character.
Also, I still don't understand the Sam hate. I think he's a great character.
Well, that's a whole other can of worms. Just make new IPs, we don't need UC to be everything. And I'm sure ND don't want to be making UC games constantly.
digoutyoursoul
Member
Seems to be a book I would love to read, would much prefer a audiobook version which doesn't seem to be available here in the UK, sucks.
Dragon1893
Member
Probably a romantic dinner that ended with both of them dancing.
Man, that would've been nice lol.
Or maybe they just danced instead of playing
Man, that would've been nice lol.
Or maybe they just danced instead of playing
Crash.
I can't understand how you can look at any of these changes and think "yeah this would have been better". "Sam was your brother all along" is a horrible twist with no purpose, significant amount of vehicle sections sounds terrible, the dancing mini game sounds pointless. Elena coming in near the end of the game allows for Drake's "one last job, can't quit" arc to have weight. This proposed game sounds comically bad.
After Uncharted 3 I didn't have much confidence in Amy Hennig going forward so I'm happy with what we got in Uncharted 4.
Some of those ideas are certainly interesting but it's impossible if they'd lead to a better game...other than assuming it wouldn't because they got dropped from the project.
Some of those ideas are certainly interesting but it's impossible if they'd lead to a better game...other than assuming it wouldn't because they got dropped from the project.
Callibretto
Member
Nah, even under Hennig they already entertained the idea of this being Nate's final adventure. But that is probably one of the problem. Hennig thought and consider a lot of stuff, but didn't nail down a decision on which one to take. I imagine decision about whether it's a final Drake game or not would be one of the more important question that you need to answer early in developmemt so the rest of narrative can start to come together.
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