Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Message Board older than one year ago
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Last week, Naughty Dog and SCEA held a packed-to-the-rafters press event at the PlayStation.Blog lounge at GDC 2011 focusing on UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception. The anticipation from the invited press was palpable as they all filtered into the PlayStation.Blog Lounge – afterwards, word on the street was that we delivered.
Evan Wells, Christophe Balestra, Richard Lemarchand and yours truly were to give the demo and speak with the press – the embargo just lifted this morning, so be sure to visit your favorite gaming media outlet for their take on the event and the reveals.
We kicked off the press event with the first-ever demo outside of Naughty Dog halls of UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception in stereoscopic 3D. We chose to present a portion of the burning chateau sequence we premiered in late December. Since most people would already be familiar with the way the sequence looked and played, we thought it would make all the more evident the stellar work the Naughty Dog team has put into making the 3D presentation part of the core Naughty Dog Engine. In my opinion, with this small snippet of gameplay we’ve proven that we’re able to perfectly retain all of the spectacular visuals and effects that you’ve come to expect from an UNCHARTED game into the 3D presentation. Playing in 3D gives you some added benefits to gameplay as well, such as improved aiming around corners and an excellent read on depth for all traversal sequences, no matter how tricky. Unfortunately, until you get to see UNCHARTED 3 running in 3D at an event or in your home this November, you’ll have to rely on impressions from our attending media for how good it looked and played.
The real meat of the press event was the unveiling of the central antagonist that will try to foil Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan at every opportunity – meet Katherine Marlowe in the video above.
Marlowe is definitely not one you want to get in the way of, or worse, double cross! To give you some background, Katherine Marlowe is the coldly calculating leader of a secret society whose roots date back over four hundred years to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. She has a long-standing rivalry with Nathan Drake over Sir Francis Drake’s ring – something they both contend is rightfully theirs and is also the key to an ancient mystery. As you can tell from the cutscene above, Marlowe is a much more cerebral enemy than Drake has confronted in the past, using both psychological and physical tactics to get what she is after. Marlowe also has the assistance of her team of highly trained agents in this secret society – they are far more elusive and dangerous than the hired guns Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan have faced in the past.
Additionally, we’ve uploaded a set of stills from the cutscene, a high-resolution render of Katherine Marlowe and concept art of the agents and thugs Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan will face in UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception.
We hope you’ve all enjoyed meeting Katherine Marlowe in our GDC 2011 reveal. Stay tuned as we still have a ton of information we want to reveal – with little to no spoilers! – over the next eight months leading up to UNCHARTED 3’s PS3 release on 11-1-11.
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In case you haven’t seen my video interviews with Insomniac Games and thatgamecompany, I was at the PlayStation Experience press event in London last week, talking about the most anticipated PlayStation games of 2011.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will be right at the top of that list for many fans and I got the chance to sit with Arne Meyer, Community Strategist at Naughty Dog. After half an hour of idle chatter about ice hockey and London’s historic markets, we got on to the game and discussed what Naughty Dog is doing to ensure Drake’s third adventure is the most immersive yet.
To kick things off, which Uncharted 3 level are you showing here today?
We’re showing an extended version of a stage called The Chateau – you may have seen footage of it in the Internet, but what we have here today shows off some of the technical things we’ve been working on, new character interactions and a few gameplay mechanics that people haven’t seen before.
We’ve also brought the 3D trailer that was only previously seen at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.
Care to elaborate on those new gameplay mechanics?
I think that the key ones are the new melee options and an expanded repertoire of stealth movement, one of which sees Drake jump from above for a stealth kill. I’m personally excited about the new brawling moves, which let you take on many enemies at once and use the environment, whether that’s grabbing a chair, slamming an enemy into a wall or even removing their gun and dispatching them that way.
We’ve also taken a look at the traversal gameplay and made some improvements there, many of which are physics based, so objects react more realistically when Drake climbs on top of them. A lot of the work we’re doing is on animation, so that there’s more realism when you start running from standing, for example. Essentially, we’re adding more steps to each character animation so that it blends better when you switch from one routine to another.
Everything we do is aimed at blurring the line between the game and reality, and making the player believe in this world.
Do you do all of your motion capture in the studio?
We have two motion capture captures – a smaller one in the studio that let’s us pick up smaller pieces, like idols, and then we have a dedicated stage at Sony Studios, and that’s where we get both the motion capture and the audio – because we do all of the dialogue at the same time – for both gameplay and cinematics.
It’s big enough for us to set up and perform everything from rehearsals to the final performances, and that approach, which is basically the same as producing a major motion picture, is what makes the performances so fluid and realistic in our games. When we’re in full swing, we’re doing new motion capture every week.
The actors you work with always seem so generous with their time, whether that’s rehearsing or appearing at ComicCon, more so than other game actors?
We truly feel that they are part of the studio and they come down a lot on their own. Between working with them solidly for such a long period of time, and giving them input into what their characters are and should be, it’s a lot more collaborative and totally in the spirit of how Naughty Dog operates.
They feel invested in Uncharted, and it’s really appreciated when they take the time out to come along with us to events. They’re popular around the studio and we generally just like having them around.
Uncharted had water and jungle, Uncharted 2 had snow and ice. Which element are you working to perfect with Uncharted 3?
We’re always on the lookout for new technical challenges and we’re really happy with what we’re achieving with our fire effects. It’s not just a static asset – the fire deteriorates the wood realistically and there are blowback effects, like you would expect. The smoke is looking much better this time around.
If the fire is eating away at the wood in the chateau, will it burn to the ground if you take too long?
You could sit down and watch the chateau burn around you, if you sit there long enough; however, we want the player to proceed through the game at a decent pace so that’s not going to happen. Even in this demo, you can see beams deteriorating as they burn, and you can even take cover behind them when they give way and fall to the floor, only for that cover to disappear when the beam has burned away completely.
Procedural fire is a pretty difficult technical challenge, especially on top of everything else you’re trying to get in the game, but it produces some brilliant effects, like the corners of the wallpaper starting to roll and then igniting, and then the embers flickering in the air. Essentially, we’re programming oxygen and then having the fire follow it around the environment.
I caught a glimpse of a wad of £20s in the teaser trailer we released at the end of last year. Does this mean Drake is coming our way?
Drake is going to be exploring many locations across the world. We’ve only shown two of them, the desert and the chateau, but he’s going to be exploring many different places. We like to drop hints everywhere so you should probably keep your eyes peeled.
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With that important tidbit out of the way, we moved on to discussing the game: Uncharted 3 has the Cintamani Stone-sized task of living up to its predecessors, and Richmond and his team are busy implementing improvements across the board, subtle as they might appear. "The big thing is that we switched lighting engines between [Uncharted] 1 and 2, and we're keeping the same lighting engine now," he explained. "So we've already got all of those advancements. Now we're just refining them."
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Keep an eye out for Drake's new combat moves, including kicking one enemy while being grappled by another, a flying stealth attack and some weapon-grabbing takedowns. Also take notice of Naughty Dog's slick new fire modeling as it consumes the crumbling chateau. It's too bad Drake and Sully appear to be falling to a fiery death at the end of the second clip -- the game probably would have turned out to be excellent.
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We’re not closing out 2010 quietly! I’m sure it’s been hard to miss that another wave of information, interviews, screenshots and gameplay video for UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception hit the internets today. You’re just seeing the fruits of the nefarious plan we’ve had in the works for a couple of months now. Okay, that’s not quite true, but it sure sounds way better if it’s all dramatic, right?
A good part this wave comes from the event we held for the media just after the Spike VGA 2010 – you read about that here on the PlayStation.Blog a couple of weeks ago when the first batch of info on UNCHARTED 3 gameplay was released.
PlayStation.Blog was there not only to check out UNCHARTED 3 with their very own eyes, but they got managed to snag Creative Director Amy Hennig and Game Director Justin Richmond to answer some questions in the video above.
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By now, you’ve no doubt seen the first UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception trailer (along with the 11-1-11 release date) at the Spike Video Game Awards. You might’ve even seen a bit of the game in action on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Today, even more came out about UNCHARTED 3, as Naughty Dog and SCEA hosted media in Hollywood for a more in-depth look at the game.
Worry not, those of you who feared the entirety of Drake’s Deception would take place in the swirling sands of the Rub’ al-Khali Desert. The scene we witnessed (demoed in real time) took place in a dilapidated French chateau. Nathan Drake and Sully are following the trail of T.E. Lawrence (you’ve likely heard of “Lawrence of Arabia”) to find a clue that’ll take them to the lost Arabian referred to as “The Atlantis of the Sands.”
Before reading on, take a look at this excerpt, which shows about a quarter of what was demoed.
Early on, we see some of the details that Game Director Justin Richmond tells us to keep an eye out for: Drake jumping onto, and then off of a swaying chandelier, climbing not only up, but backwards if he reaches a ledge, and new contextual animations that show Drake interacting more with his surroundings (e.g. placing your hand along a wall for balance as you approach it).
And here in a secluded corner of France, it quickly becomes clear that you’re not the only one on Lawrence’s trail. At this point it’s not clear exactly who’s standing in the way of our protagonists, but they’ve got guns… and really, that’s all that matters right now. Even worse, they’re pouring gasoline throughout the villa and lighting the place on fire.
“It is important to mention that the fire is happening in-game (it’s not a cutscene) and it looks absolutely incredible. Panic sets in, so the goal of the rest of the demo is to get Drake and Sully out of the quickly burning chateau alive! You can only imagine how cool all of this is.“ – Chad Concelmo, Destructoid
Now that you’re not only escaping the fire, but fighting your way through enemies at the same time, more new features are demonstrated. When Drake happens upon an enemy below him, he can now take him down stealthily from above. Ezio Auditore would be proud. In one of the new “Brawl style” combat situations, one enemy held back Drake while another took a couple of jabs – then pulled a gun to try and cap him. He dodged, and the captor was more than a little worse for the wear.
“Even this early on in the game’s development, it feels that the combat will offer a robust, but logical set of surprises and “Oh, sh*t!” moments as the adventure progresses…” – Christopher Monfette, G4
The environment shown is incredibly dynamic; Drake isn’t climbing on a static, beautiful jungle gym, but rather a crumbling façade that seems as if it’s trying to kill him even more than the well-armed enemies in the mansion. At times it seems like Nathan Drake has the worst luck in the world, but always musters just enough to survive.
“The changing structure of the world was akin to the twisting suspended train car of Uncharted 2, which fell apart as Drake scaled it, only this level transformed more dramatically, more organically.” – Michael McWhertor, Kotaku
At one point, Drake gets his foot caught in a rotted staircase (not unlike Phil’s broken step from “Modern Family”). When an enemy tries to take advantage of the stumble, Drake shoots from the hip while Sully works to free him.
“Moments where you actually feel like a team are really cool, and I’m interested to see how Naughty Dog expands on them through the game.” – Greg Miller, IGN
Ascending through a crumbling building demonstrates not only the stellar, bleeding-edge visuals, but upgraded sound effects – the firing of the assault rifle just sounds more… real, and the punches thrown seem to carry even more weight this time out. Of course, the series’ trademark witty banter between Drake and Sully remains intact, lending a bit of levity to the serious situation.
“The action delivered on the cinematic thrill moments as huge chunks of the chateau caved in or shifted as Nate made his way to different potential escape routes. We were especially impressed by how smoothly the heart-stopping cinematics of a collapsing roof or floor would cut into the action just long enough to get you to jump without interrupting the flow of gameplay.” – Ricardo Torres, GameSpot
The scene ended not with a close shave and some relieved tension, but with things going from bad to worse as our heroes are engulfed in the conflagration. We’re not going to see how this one plays out until next November.
After the demo, we had a chance to speak on camera with Creative Director Amy Hennig and Game Director Justin Richmond. You’ll see that later this month.
What to do until then? How about go behind the scenes of the making of that VGA’s trailer. Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer sat down with the 2 Player Productions crew to get a more in-depth look at their influences, process and philosophy that drives their high-quality documentary work.
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The simplest answer is that it takes place in the desert. Creative Director Amy Hennig says that Naughty Dog has challenged themselves to portray "sand in all of its forms," and Uncharted 3 will try to do exactly that, eventually taking its now familiar characters (as well as some new faces) into the Arabian Peninsula. The central chase of the game revolves around explorer T.E. Laurence and his search for an ancient city of Arabian treasure, alternately known as Ubar, Iram of the Pillars, or as it will be called in the game, the Atlantis of the Sands.
But outside of the new setting, Uncharted 3 is set to improve upon Naughty Dog's successful formula in a few other ways as well. Nathan Drake has never been more adept at fighting groups of enemies, more animated and active, or more grounded in his own environments than he is here.
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“All men dream…” My first day joining the PlayStation family was July 19th – it was the day my life changed and it was also when I was told I’d be working on unannounced projects like UNCHARTED 3 and Resistance 3, the latest installments in what are easily some of my favorite video game franchises. My dream just became a reality.
Fast forward to the first moments when I saw the final cut of the UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception reveal trailer, and my excitement turned into an obsession. The warm glow emanating from Jeff’s laptop couldn’t keep the chills running up my spine at bay from the mere thought of knowing exactly what I was about to experience. This wasn’t just any trailer folks, the two minutes that followed represented years of design, coding and writing from a pack of Dogs that meticulously create worlds and adventures we can all be Naughty in.
I was immediately grabbed by its simplicity and elegance, which met every expectation that built up in my mind a little more every time I’d hear a whisper or two of Naughty Dog’s progress. The more rewarding experience was being able to share that excitement with you, the PlayStation community at our VGA viewing event which we co-hosted this weekend with Capcom.
The air was alive with the sounds of Marvel vs Capcom 3 on PS3, and Uncharted 3 speculation was flowing like the endless amount of soda and food we were handing out. I couldn’t decide which proved to be more difficult, keeping a crowd of 300 gamers entertained (as I manned the microphone hosting the evening’s festivities) or keeping every imprinted frame and moment from the trailer a secret long enough not to ruin the surprise. I found comfort (and pizza) when I would sneak away and ran to the makeshift Naughty Dog kennel that Will Powers and I constructed in the back of the Kim Sing Theatre. There, I would make new friends among the Dogs where they’d reveal how they pulled off the new sand physics, story and most importantly, the challenges that lay ahead to meet their 11.1.11 deadline.
The fruit of their labor came from the eruption of screams of excitement that rocked their kennel when the trailer was finally revealed. If you weren’t there, not only did you miss one hell of a party, but you may have missed out on one of the most important milestones in the development of UNCHARTED 3, the very moment Naughty Dog got to witness the reaction and fanfare to their countless hours of work. You, the PlayStation community, with every high-five and cheer that followed Naughty Dog’s speech, have become their second wind. Exciting, huh?
But now I turn the spotlight to you. If you had a chance to make it out to the Kim Sing Theatre on Saturday night, what were some of your favorite moments of our event and of the VGAs? Hit us up on the comments. If you have any photos or videos you’d like to share, make sure to drop us a link! We’d love to see them.
Our viewing party wouldn’t be the end of our UNCHARTED revelations for the weekend, as we next faced a new audience, the gaming and mainstream media. To be continued…
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It's not much, but just enough to tolerate some of Jimmy's unassisted potshots.
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Oh, and you'll also see some gameplay, not seen in the trailer. Does that work for you? We thought so. Check it out after the break.
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Late, late last night, the PlayStation Store published a special update that was chock full of UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception content! Below is a rundown of everything that went up. Go grab it NOW – well, if you like the content that is.
- UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception worldwide reveal trailer
We’ve also got an UNCHARTED 3 PS3 Static Theme you can get for FREE – just head over to the UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception Official Game Site and register for updates. Once you’ve registered, you’ll get an e-mail with a PSN voucher code you can redeem for the PS3 Static Theme.
We haven’t forgotten about UNCHARTED 2 yet either – we’ve put together a special sale of ALL UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer DLC bundles which will run for 3 weeks only! Call it a little holiday treat for our multiplayer community.
- PlayStation Heroes Pack? Boom. 50% off!
- UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune MP Pack (skins AND maps)? Boom. 50% off!
- Siege Expansion Pack? Boom. 50% off!
- UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Sidekick Skins Pack? Boom. Headshot! I mean, 50% off!
A few weeks ago we informally discussed with our community regarding putting up DLC that was previously offered as exclusive pre-order items, such as the Golden Guns. There were many, varied opinions and good points on all sides of the argument. Based on that forum thread, and other conversations elsewhere on the same topic, we’re glad to announce that we’ve made the previously exclusive Golden Guns multiplayer DLC available to everyone on the PSN Store for a mere $0.99! If you’re outside of the US, be sure to check your local PSN Store for exact pricing in your region.
Back to UNCHARTED 3 for a minute to close out this blog post… we’ve got a special treat for our community and UNCHARTED fans – below you’ll find a universal PSN voucher code that all our North American fans can redeem to get a limited-time-only UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception logo PSN Avatar, shown above! But act quickly: Once this voucher is tapped out, it’s gone forever.
F3E9-33NJ-JGCQWe hope you enjoy this veritable cornucopia of UNCHARTED 2 and UNCHARTED 3 goodies on PSN!
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We just got out of the Spike Video Game Awards 2010 in downtown Los Angeles and it’s been an amazing day for us! We hope all of you were watching on TV or through the live stream on Spike.com to watch the FULL announce trailer AND catch the reveal of the release date – UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception will hit stores on November 1st, 2011!
Earlier today, Evan, Christophe, Amy and Justin walked the red carpet, getting their chance to say a few words about the imminent showing of our announcement trailer before heading into the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend the Spike Video Game Awards. The rest of us met them inside as we witnessed an incredible show that the Spike folks put together for all the nominees and games that were announced today – they really did a great job showing our industry in a positive fashion and showing not only the developers, but the diversity of creativity and innovation we are all capable of producing.
At the tail of end of it all, we got to see a brief recap of UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune and UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves before the big moment – the first time our full trailer for UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception has been seen publicly. We’ve embedded our announcement trailer above in case you weren’t able to watch the Spike VGA show this evening.
If you didn’t catch this earlier this week, Entertainment Weekly revealed some details about UNCHARTED 3 – but there’s more to come!
We’re hosting a bunch of journalists tomorrow in Los Angeles to discuss our game and show them a bit more than you’ve been able to see so far. You’ll be reading (and seeing) about what we presented to them over the next few weeks in your favorite online web sites and print magazines around the world.
On Monday, we’re incredibly humbled (and I’m a bit proud) to see Evan and Christophe appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on your local NBC station. Trust me when I say you won’t want to miss it – we’ve got something great lined up for our appearance on the show.
That’s not all. The PlayStation Store will be updated soon with some UNCHARTED 3 content for our announcement – wallpaper, dynamic theme, PSN avatars and more. We’ll also reveal part one of a special behind the scenes look at the making of our announcement shot by the extremely talented crew at 2 Player Productions. There will be plenty of interviews, screenshots, concept art, even gameplay video on the way – and we will have only barely scratched the surface of everything in UNCHARTED 3.
These past few days have been extremely exhilarating for us to finally reveal UNCHARTED 3 to the world. All of what you’re hearing about and seeing so far are the culmination of a few months of incredibly hard work by many of us at Naughty Dog to pull everything together. We’re glad to be able take a quick breather and check out all of the impressions that are being formed about UNCHARTED 3 and where we’re taking Nathan Drake next. There is no doubt that we still have a lot more to do ahead of us before you can purchase your own copy of UNCHARTED 3 next year, on November 1, 2011 – we’re looking forward to helping you “uncover the truth” over the next year!
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