PREVIEW – A darker, older Nathan Drake will be once again back for his fourth world-spanning adventure and debut on the PlayStation 4. The new Uncharted takes place three years after the conclusion to Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Now, Drake and Elena seem to have settled down, living happily together. Of course, it can be never stay that way, or else we won’t have sequels, right? This time, the troublemaker is none other than Sam Drake, Nathan’s older brother, who wants is young bro back in the treasure hunting business.

Three years has passed since the events of Uncharted 3. Nathen would happily skip to the “and they lived happily ever after” part of his life with Elena, when Sam, who Nathan thought to be dead appears. While our big brother is well alive and kicking, he’s still in deep trouble (as always). You see, Nathan might be a reckless hot-headed chap, but his older brother is even more like that.

“Who’s the best treasure hunter?!”

He’s also jealous of Drake, he sees him as the ‘better at everything little brother’. Well, if you have a brother or sister, you know how it is: always the jealousy! According to the developers: “the lack of Sam being in Nathan life for so long is what’s driven him in the last games”. In any case there’s a lot of rivalry between the two of them. We also know that Sam will a companion to Nathan like for example Ellie was to him in the first Uncharted but Sam’s A.I will be different, since he’s a grown up treasure hunter, so he’s much stronger than Ellie.

While Sam well alive, his life still depends on him finding an artifact from Henry Avery, and of course he asks his younger brother to help him out. The artifact could hold mystical powers which will be used to save Sam or Sam might need to retrieve it to pay off a debt.

Since Nathan Drake feels indebted of his brother he can’t resist getting back on treasure hunting. Why Nathan feels like that? Well, unfortunately Naughty Dog don’t want to talk about Drake and Sam past, so this is as much we could gather about them.

Game Informer, who made a preview about the game, saw an extended demo with a new scene. Drake is beaten down while Sam is rested, they start arguing the existence of Avery secret, then something catches Drake’s eye, he moves forward, pull some foliage, revealing a gray monument with a carving. Besides Elena, good old Sully will also be present in the game. Villains will also play a bigger role this time.

Pirates and treasure hunters of the Caribbean

If you are into pirate history, you must have heard of Henry Avery, who was one of the most famous pirates by the end of the 17^th century. Hence the story takes Drake and Sam to Libertalia “a mythic Madagascar colony purportedly founded by pirates”. That’s your typical Caribbean island alright, which you can see in the gameplay below.

That’s fine and dandy, but since you had your share of jungles in the last three games, you are probably wondering whether some new places will be also available? Well, good news is that you’re not going to spend the whole game on the island, teases snowy and urban environments as well.

Of course the treasure also attracts other treasure hunters.  Besides the Drake brothers we have another couple of rival hunters, whose names are Rafe and Nadine. We don’t know much about them either, only that Rafe is a very different treasure hunter than Drake, with different morale and approach and Nadine owns a private military company in South Africa.

Choose you own path!

While I cannot understand how a PlayStation fan could dislike the Uncharted games, a friend of mine told me, that he feels so towards the series, and that’s because the games are “damn too linear”. Well, Naughty Dog is changing this stance with multiple paths and solutions to problems and also “focusing on navigational freedom for this entry”.

This includes the actual physical path as well: for example you can find “multiple paths, one finding an extra cave, other bypassing a group of enemies”. In the demo what Game Informers saw they showed Drake taking a more risky climbing route that almost makes him fall in the sea. There are also plenty of side stories if you’re looking for them.

All paths have consequences, there’s no “Golden path”.

Use your gun, brain and fists!

Combat was always an essential part of every Uncharted game, and we could see how much this evaluated in the E3 demo of Uncharted 4. (Take a look below, if you have missed it.) It’s a lot more refined, with top notch close combat animation and gun fights. There are also more interaction possibilities in combat – coming from both Drake your enemy. For example enemies can grab your leg if you try to push them over ledges. Naughty Dig reworked the whole A.I system, so fighting will be both more challenging, realistic and natural.

Besides combat, exploration and puzzles are still an important part of the game. For the climbing of mountains you will have more tools besides Rope and Piton, like the metal spike. Unfortunately Naughty Dog isn’t ready to talk about them yet, they only said that they want to incorporate the tools into puzzles.

Concerning the usual artifacts (or collectibles) to be found they may contain notes pointing to more even more treasures/artifacts.

Like Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 before it, Uncharted 4 will feature multiplayer, although we aren’t sure what has changed between the previous game and Uncharted 4.

Drake’s last adventure?

Because of the title of the game: a “Thief’s End”, one can wonder, whether it’s Drake’s last adventure, or may it even mean is untimely death? Of course Naughty Dog refuses to give a straight answer. “We were trying to explore what it’s like to be with somebody as capable of Nathan Drake,” they said. “What’s something impactful that we can do to switch expectations and how can we have it emotionally charged? As to the more serious tone of Uncharted 4, there will be “still plenty of humor in the game”.

Speaking of “serious” games: porting The Last of Us to the PS4 helped the Uncharted 4 development tremendously. That even if first only a small team was working on it since U3 development ended. Later half the team moved to Uncharted 4 after the work on The Last of Us Remastered ended and the rest after finishing Left Behind.

Anyway, we can be sure, that no features will be “left behind” in Uncharted 4.

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