Uncharted 4: Devs Reveal Secrets Behind the Series' Best Chase Sequence

Uncharted 4: Devs Reveal Secrets Behind the Series’ Best Chase Sequence

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Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End crescendos at its midpoint with a bombastic, all-out chase action sequence that is not only a highpoint for the game itself but for the entire Uncharted franchise, ranking as one of Uncharted’s best chases and action scenes. It’s a thrilling, lengthy chase through city streets and rocky terrain, against seemingly unstoppable odds (and one frightening truck), and plenty of Uncharted’s coolest moments., but it’s also one rooted in its character work, a reflection of Nathan Drake’s journey so far, his various personal ties to Sam, Sully, and Elena, and so much more.

It’s a high point of Naughty Dog’s action work, and to find out more, IGN spoke to two Naughty Dog team members - Kurt Margenau and Shaun Escayg - about how the chase came together, its emotional resonance, and more in our latest Art of the Level.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection - Direct-Feed Screens [September 2021] 8 Images

Among the many important things to get right about this sequence was ensuring it worked as a summation of all the character relationships at play so far in A Thief’s End.

“So we’ve laid out the story structure. We know where the highs and lows are, and in particular, this particular sequence was the midpoint,” Escayg explained. “There’s a lot of emotional charges of these brothers being reunited. And we knew that at some point we wanted all of the dynamics, Nate, Sam, Sullivan, Nadine, Rafe and all the history that came with that to crescendo at a midpoint and in almost like a false victory, if you will, or the band’s back together kind thing.”

The devs reveal the secrets behind the series’ best chase sequence in our latest deep dive into how one of gaming’s most memorable levels came to life. Learn about how the devs crafted this sequence, including some surprising ways they made driving, gunplay, and hand-to-hand combat feel so satisfying, how the deep, emotional stakes are brought to the forefront as Drake races to reunite with his brother, and so much more by watching the video above.

Some of the key takeaways involved learning how the massive, relenting truck that chases Nate and Sully at the start of the chase actually works.

“It has this network of essentially rails that it’s on that every street it has the ability to get to, to be as kind of a predictive spot in front of the player that wants to be in. So no matter where you’re going, it’s going to try to be there, i’s always shooting at you,” Margenau explained.

And perhaps one of the biggest things the team worked to get right was the pressure and feel of Uncharted’s best convoy fight scene, as Nate hops between cars, taking down foes with bullets and fists, knocks out drivers and full cars nearby, all while racing to get to Sam. As Margenau explained in the video, an inventive slotting system allowed the team to choreograph all the car’s movements so that the player always had something to contend with. And doing so allowed the wider team to strive to get all the finer details right.

“That was the [macro] level that I was able to think about [the slotting mechanism] instead of having to do every little tiny little detail, which I think was a big breakthrough just for myself and my own time to be able to think about it on that level and have the tools to really iterate on it and play around with, what do we want the player to be doing here? How many vehicles? What’s the orientation? How do we make this fun? And that’s kind of our design philosophy, how do we get to a place where we can iterate on that final experience as much as possible instead of just trying to get something to work.”

Margenau also touched on how a sequence like this evolves when bringing Uncharted 4 to the PS5 as part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. It’s still the same content as the PS4 release, but this collection allowed the team to start experimenting with one of the PS5’s most exciting features, haptics.

“We wrote a whole new way of when you’re driving the vehicle, there’s a bunch of different systems in place in the vehicle itself. Every tire is modeled and how much it is gripping or slipping on the ground is modeled and then reflected in stereo, on the controller, in haptics. So you can kind of feel what every tire is doing just from holding a controller. These little touches and stuff, when you’re drifting around in that sequence down the roads, it’s a lot of fun.”

For more, watch the full video above, and be sure to check out our other Art of the Level features, like our breakdown of The Last of Us Part 2’s memorable Rat King boss fight, and Ghost of Tsushima’s unforgettable opening.

Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior Features Editor, PlayStation Lead, and host of Podcast Beyond! He’s the proud dog father of a BOY named Loki. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Uncharted Movie Gets New TV Spot

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A new TV spot for the Uncharted movie has been revealed prior to the film’s release in theaters next month. In recent weeks, Sony Pictures has continued to release new glimpses of the forthcoming action film, giving us a much better idea of what it will have in store. And while this new TV spot doesn’t contain a ton of new footage from Uncharted, it continues to show off the chemistry between Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg that will lie at the center of the movie.

In total, this new TV commercial for Uncharted is only 30 seconds in length, meaning that it moves at a very brisk pace. Much of what is shown in this new video is comprised of scenes that were shown in the second full-length trailer for Uncharted (which you can watch at the top of the page). Notably, this TV spot tries to focus more on some of the comedic aspects of the film. This is seen most apparently at the end of the trailer in an interaction between Holland and Wahlberg’s characters where they quip back and forth with one another.

You can get a look at the new TV spot in the tweet attached below:

Not sure I’m a fan of a proper Scottish welcome. @TomHolland1996 and @MarkWahlberg star in #UnchartedMovie, exclusively in movie theaters February 18. pic.twitter.com/NBM9jBAjWo — Uncharted (@unchartedmovie) January 22, 2022

Uncharted is set to hit theaters next month on February 18th. And if you’re looking to scratch your Uncharted itch before that time, the new PS5 version of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy will be launching next week on January 28 in a bundle known as the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection.

Conversely, if you’d like to see an official plot description of Uncharted, you can find it for yourself down below.

“Street-smart thief Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to recover a fortune lost by Ferdinand Magellan 500 years ago. What starts as a heist job for the duo becomes a globe-trotting, white-knuckle race to reach the prize before the ruthless Moncada (Antonio Banderas), who believes he and his family are the rightful heirs. If Nate and Sully can decipher the clues and solve one of the world’s oldest mysteries, they stand to find $5 billion in treasure and perhaps even Nate’s long-lost brother…but only if they can learn to work together.”

James Bond Producer Would ‘Love’ a Female Director for Next Movie in the Franchise

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“I’d love to have a female director. We’ll have to see what happens,” said Barbara Broccoli, long-time producer of the Bond franchise

James Bond Producer Would ‘Love’ a Female Director for Next Movie in the Franchise

The producers behind the James Bond films are all for a woman directing a film in the series for the first time.

Longtime producer Barbara Broccoli recently appeared on The Deadline: Crew Call podcast where she spoke about the future of the 007 franchise and when fans could expect a female director to tackle a movie.

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“I’d love to have a female [director]. We’d love to do that,” Broccoli said. “I’d love to have a female director. We’ll have to see what happens, we’ll start the process sometime this year I guess.”

She added, “We’ll see where it takes us.”

Broccoli said the search to follow up No Time to Die would begin “sometime this year.”

Daniel Craig said goodbye to the famous spy in last year’s No Time to Die, which became the highest-grossing film of 2021.

A domestic box office haul of $2.7 million over the weekend helped the film catapult past the $700 million mark. At $729.1 million worldwide, it surpassed the previous highest-grossing record holder, F9 ($725.3 million worldwide).

barbara broccoli Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage

Several A-list stars have expressed interest in filling in the agent’s shoes in the future, including Dwayne Johnson and Tom Holland.

Earlier this month, Holland admitted he had pitched his idea for a young Bond movie to Sony. Though the idea didn’t get bought, it did lead to connections that facilitated his role as Nathan Drake opposite Mark Whalberg in the upcoming video game adaptation Uncharted.

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“I had a meeting after or during Spider-Man 2 [Far From Home] with Sony to pitch this idea of a young Bond film that I’d come up with. It was the origin story of James Bond,” Holland told Total Film in an interview. “It didn’t really make sense. It didn’t work. It was the dream of a young kid, and I don’t think the Bond estate were particularly interested.”

Evening Reading - January 21, 2022

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Look, Shacknews, I’m a cowboy! Howdy, howdy, howdy! Time to mosey off into this week’s Evening Reading.

What will be the next Naughty Dog game?

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Last Updated: January 19, 2022

Naughty Dog is one of the most praised developers of all time, with series like Jak and Dexter, Uncharted, or The Last of Us. They seemingly finished the Uncharted series, and their last game was the second installment in The Last of Us franchise, so what are they going to do next?

Personally, I would love to see a brand-new IP from Naughty Dog. I have no idea, what that might be, but we can assume that it would be a third-person-perspective action game. This tends to be the pattern for most Sony Exclusive games, but they are more often than not awesome games, often outstanding and system-defining titles. The Last of Us squeezed all the juices from PlayStation 3 and looks stunning to this day. Similarly with The Last of Us Part II and PlayStation 4.

Naughty Dog’s Next Project

Another take is just going with the known and tested, so another Uncharted game. Even though the story of Nathan Drake seems finished, it does not mean that the series is. They could easily introduce some new characters to the fold or go with Nathan’s daughter showcased in the epilogue of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. It has been almost 6 years since the last Uncharted game, and almost 4 years since Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It is possible that Naughty Dog will just go with something familiar and give us another amazing story from the Uncharted universe.

It is safe to assume that they are creating some kind of upgrade for The Last of Us Part II for PlayStation 5, or a remastered version, but even if so, it is definitely not their main and only project. Even though, I personally think that The Last of Us Part III is inevitable it is way too early, to be going with that, after just releasing The Last of Us Part II in 2020.

All that remains is to wait for any official announcements. 2022 should be the year when Naughty Dog reveals what they are working on next.