If you've ever wondered what happened to Uncharted 4's original story (and design?)
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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Pretty interesting. I like a lot of Amy's ideas for UC4, but I hated UC3. If Amy had full control of UC3, she fucked up for sure. However, it seemed like UC3 was developed haphazardly where it seemed like the writer (Amy) had to basically fill-in the story linking already created levels. But Amy was also the director of UC3 so... To me, it seems like it was an issue of too many cooks in the kitchen with regards to UC3 and I would guess that the problem was mainly a Naughty Dog issue by not having a proper management hierarchy. Lastly, it sorta seems like Straley and Druckmann get full control (TLOU and UC4) while Amy wasn't given it and I can see that being the reason of her walking out.
Anyways, back to UC4. Some of Amy's ideas are far better than what ended up being in the final game. I like the premise of her core storyline of Sam being the villain for the majority of the game. Uncharted is best when Drake and Elena are together because they bounce of each other really really well so I, of course, would've much preferred Amy's UC4, which seemed like Drake and Elena were together most of the adventure. Uncharted 4's best chapters were easy the ones with Elena. And, I love the cliche dance number between the leads in just about anything, and inserting Drake and Elena into that cliche would've been a lot of fun. The idea I don't like of Amy's was having Drake only melee for the 1st half of the game as the UC3 Arkham inspired melee sucked and I think she's overthinking the whole ludonarrative dissonance criticisms.
And by far the worst thing that happened to UC4 was NO FUCKING ALAN TUDYK!!!
Alan Tudyk's an AMAZING pirate to boot:
Anyways, back to UC4. Some of Amy's ideas are far better than what ended up being in the final game. I like the premise of her core storyline of Sam being the villain for the majority of the game. Uncharted is best when Drake and Elena are together because they bounce of each other really really well so I, of course, would've much preferred Amy's UC4, which seemed like Drake and Elena were together most of the adventure. Uncharted 4's best chapters were easy the ones with Elena. And, I love the cliche dance number between the leads in just about anything, and inserting Drake and Elena into that cliche would've been a lot of fun. The idea I don't like of Amy's was having Drake only melee for the 1st half of the game as the UC3 Arkham inspired melee sucked and I think she's overthinking the whole ludonarrative dissonance criticisms.
And by far the worst thing that happened to UC4 was NO FUCKING ALAN TUDYK!!!
Alan Tudyk's an AMAZING pirate to boot:
Some of the ideas sound like they could have worked, though given the Writing of the previous 3 games I don't trust it would have been anything other than action movie schlock at best. If it worked it would have been like 2, cheesy but enjoyable and with some heart, if it didn't it would have been like UC 3 and come off as a little forced.
That said, the video directly reads from Jason Schreier's book, but seems to miss that the book paints the development before her departure was much more disorganized and preliminary than this video portrays, in some respects there are hints that the initial UC4 team was very small and very much in the early stages by the time she left. So it's almost impossible to say how many of these ideas or proposals would have been changed, and how well they would have been pulled off.
It's much easier to say the story that exists mostly in our imaginations with a few points to hold it together is better than the completed work we can examine from beginning to end.
While the story ideas are different and incredibly interesting to hear about from a game development prospective, the original story ideas never got far enough to judge whether or not they would have been better than we ultimately ended up with, even the, not picking up a gun for the first half of the game, idea sounds horrendous at first, but was likely proposed early enough in development that they were exploring ways to make the climbing and sneaking more engaging so never really existed past the proposal stage.
That said, the video directly reads from Jason Schreier's book, but seems to miss that the book paints the development before her departure was much more disorganized and preliminary than this video portrays, in some respects there are hints that the initial UC4 team was very small and very much in the early stages by the time she left. So it's almost impossible to say how many of these ideas or proposals would have been changed, and how well they would have been pulled off.
It's much easier to say the story that exists mostly in our imaginations with a few points to hold it together is better than the completed work we can examine from beginning to end.
While the story ideas are different and incredibly interesting to hear about from a game development prospective, the original story ideas never got far enough to judge whether or not they would have been better than we ultimately ended up with, even the, not picking up a gun for the first half of the game, idea sounds horrendous at first, but was likely proposed early enough in development that they were exploring ways to make the climbing and sneaking more engaging so never really existed past the proposal stage.
I like the idea of Elena being part of the operation, instead of being just a stick-in-the-mud like she was in 2, and 3, and ultimately 4. Elena has been the naggy spouse since Uncharted 1 (hence why I preferred Chloe), so to have her be an actual support like Sully would've been nice.
I don't know in how far Henning was dedicated to fleshing out Drake and to put an end to his story though. 4 turned him from a two dimensional character into a three dimensional one, and gave him an ending that felt resolute and befitting of the tone of the franchise (despite not feeling exactly earned). And I have a feeling this is due to Druckmann.
I don't know in how far Henning was dedicated to fleshing out Drake and to put an end to his story though. 4 turned him from a two dimensional character into a three dimensional one, and gave him an ending that felt resolute and befitting of the tone of the franchise (despite not feeling exactly earned). And I have a feeling this is due to Druckmann.
Henning's ideas sound just as safe and not special though. Apart from maybe the lack of guns in the first half it sounds like it was just going to be another Uncharted.BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
Who cares. It resulted in Rafe; the best damn character in the game. Largely due to the terrific performance.Phoenixmgs said:
Totally agree. It seems like anytime a video game gets writing anywhere near just competent, it gets praised as some masterpiece. Nope, I hold video games to the same writing standard as any other medium.BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
I believe he was voicing Rafe.Casual Shinji said:
The whole series has imo. The monster of the week twists in the first three games were never very compelling if they were considered "risks". To me they were just different (and often more annoying) enemies to fight. I was gland 4 felt more grounded, but it still should've had better set pieces.BabyfartsMcgeezaks said: