Uncharted 4 developer Naughty Dog hosted a livestream of their latest game yesterday, revealing plenty of information along the way. The entire stream can be watched below, and the main points have been highlighted.
One of the big topics of discussion was the new jeep. Players will be able to drive around levels in this vehicle, with different terrains giving a different feel to how the vehicle handles. It’s even possible to drive the jeep right off a cliff. This will kill you though: doing so will result in you getting respawned at the last checkpoint.
Along with the jeep, players will find Nathan Drake tags along with friends during Uncharted 4. Both Sully and Sam will shoot out of the jeep during combat, but Drake cannot. Naughty Dog initially wanted players to be able to drive and shoot, but found players wouldn’t leave the jeep if they could shoot from it. It’s taken several iterations, but Naughty Dog is happy with how the jeep plays now.
Because so much interaction revolves around the jeep, Naughty Dog has developed a new style of conversation around the vehicle. Conversations will stop when players get out of the jeep and will naturally resume when everyone gets back in. Players can leave their allies in the jeep to amusing results. The allies will mention that you left them, and will get out of the jeep to walk around and stretch their legs.
In terms of level design, Naughty Dog wanted to emphasise stealth gameplay more than ever before. Each level will feature multiple different paths, and some will allow you to complete entire sections without getting into combat at all. There’s even going to be a trophy tied to doing this.
When playing in stealth, your AI teammates will still be helpful. They will help you spot enemies and perform stealth takedowns of their own. There are even team takedowns that can be performed with Sam and Sully.
That’s not to say every encounter will have a stealth component. During certain sections, combat will be unavoidable. This is all dependent on the story and pacing, said the Naughty Dog developers.
Unfortunately, even with all of this emphasis on playing with allies, there will be no co-op whatsoever in Uncharted 4. According to the developers, this would take away from the crafted experience already made for a single player to experience.
As for difficulty, the more challenging the level, the wider variety of enemies a player will encounter. For example, one area may only have sniper enemies on normal difficulty, but bumping it up to Hard or Crushing difficulty will add enemies with RPGs in addition to the snipers. Crushing difficulty will also make it harder for you to detect enemies in stealth, and enemies will more aggressively try to find you if you drop back into stealth after engaging in combat.
Lastly, Uncharted 4 will feature the most robust Photo Mode seen in a Naughty Dog game yet. This isn’t really a surpris,e seeing as how a Photo Mode was included in the remastered versions of The Last of Us and the Uncharted collection on PS4.
More information about control options and the multiplayer of Uncharted 4 will be released over the next weeks leading up to the May 10 launch.
So what do you think? Are there any bits of this news you found to be interesting? What else would you like to know about Uncharted 4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
