At the keynote session for the first inaugural PlayStation Experience, Sony Computer Entertainment and Naughty Dog were nice enough to debut actual gameplay footage of the highly anticipated next installment of the Uncharted franchise, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The video was a sizable length–over 15 minutes. It was the first official look at actual gameplay for the sequel. Basically, the preview at PlayStation Experience was equivalent to a behind-closed-doors, hands-off demo for the Electronic Entertainment Expo. However, the video at Playstation Experience was available to the entire public, and it looked fantastic.
The video started with some exploration and portrayed the game’s fateful protagonist, Nathan Drake, exploring a desolate island. Drake navigates through some ominous caverns. Based on some of the dialogue, he appears to be on the hunt for a pirate’s treasure. Drake encounters some skeletons of some unlucky pirates or explorers. I was happy to see that Drake has still not lost his sardonic, keen sense of humor, especially in the face of death and danger. After the extended climbing and exploration sequence, Drake escapes the caverns.
Unfortunately for Drake, he is not alone on the tropical island. He soon encounters armed guards and mercenaries. Drake attempts to evade them and go undetected, but eventually he is spotted. Then, the game gets to showcase a trademark Uncharted shooting sequence, except with some new twists. The new next-gen visuals look amazing. It appears that the melee combat has been revamped with some new tweaks and animations. Apparently, Drake can interact with the environment for melee combat even more. Sooner of later, Drake is able to escape the inept guards. He climbs to safety and narrowly avoids death via rock slide. However, the end of the demo threw players for a loop. A new character was introduced–none other than Sam Drake, Nathan’s older brother. Sam and Nate are working together to locate some treasure on the island. However, the loyalty of Sam has to be unknown at this point. In the circles Nate has traveled in, there have been a ton of double crosses with people he thought were his friends or allies. Sam may be his older brother, but Nate did not exactly have the most stable childhood. In the third game, it was revealed that Nate was an orphan who was adopted by Sully, and basically became a professional thief/treasure hunter/jack-of-all trades. The jury is still out on whether or not Sam can be trusted.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is one of my most anticipated titles of 2015. The new preview that debuted at PlayStation Experience has definitely fueled some fire for the game. Hopefully, Naughty Dog will deliver for the franchise’s debut on PlayStation 4. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is due out in 2015 for the PS4.
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