By now any and all fans of Uncharted should have seen the latest Uncharted 4: A Thief's End gameplay trailer. It is how the PlayStation Experience opened and it has been kind of the talk of the town ever since. More so since it was one of the few PS4 games that fans at the event were not able to get directly hands on with after the keynote. Naughty Dog didn't seem to let me down but it did seem to cause many people to call afoul based on the NOT ACTUAL GAMEPLAY trailer from E3. The big thing being that the gameplay looks downgraded visually…
Seeing as people were expecting the tease for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End that was pre-rendered amazingness were there any other major issues anyone saw with what was shown for the game during the experience. Most likely as we live in the internet age where everyone is an armchair curmudgeon. From what I saw though I think Naughty Dog is still delivering just what all of us fans have wanted. Doubly so since we most likely will not be getting another good Tomb Raider title on PlayStation hardware for some time.
Have a peek at the footage for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End just in case you have no good point of reference still. Then you can move on to my thoughts and speculation for what will most likely be PlayStation's next major title for whatever year it launches.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End — Gameplay Video
Remove out what you expected for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End based on the first trailer you saw with the latest version of Nathan Drake. Can you really say that this game looks less shiny than previous titles? I know I really can't and this is also most likely an early build for the game. I doubt that Naughty Dog is truly pushing the limits of the PS4 yet but I don't think that the level of detail can match even the best title on the PS3 to date. It's not life like but it is damn impressive and I have a feeling that we will be truly blown away at E3 when we see Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in a more polished place in the development.
Visuals aside, as that doesn't make a game, no one can say that this demo for Uncharted 4 didn't look like a whole lot of fun. There was no real context as to what is going on in the game's story but being able to sneak around, grappling hook a branch, then drop onto and kill an enemy alone is an amazing looking addition to the franchise. I hope that there are more than just a few options or other methods to do the same thing in the game proper and not just these jungle looks. Even if the game doesn't look photo-realistic all of you complaining out there can't deny it looks fun to play. Who cares if it doesn't make Nolan North look like he is truly in a game?
Lastly, and in my opinion the most impressive thing, has to be the load times. I have a feeling it was edited out for the broadcast as it isn't in the video above but during the live play the demonstrator fell off a ledge on accident. With the immense graphical power being used already you would have expected the game to take a bit to reload back to the last check point. Surprisingly we were only waiting about 10 seconds before Nathan was running and gunning again. If that isn't impressive for the stage of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End I don't know what is. Games that are gold with that level of power take longer than that so maybe we should focus on these things instead of the fact the game doesn't look like the teaser.
I'm downright excited to see anything and everything that will be coming for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End based on this presentation. I just hope people start to see the game for the mechanics and not just the pretty atmosphere and characters. They do add to the game but you can have the most realistic looking title out there but if the gameplay sucks donkey scrotum, who's going to really care?
