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Let's Play

Duration: 3:53

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When I think of the Uncharted series, I think of widescreen cinematic moments that its developer, Naughty Dog, magically made playable: the thrilling climb up a derailed train hanging off the side of a cliff in Uncharted 2, say, or the fight on the cargo bay of a cargo plane in mid-air in Uncharted 3. So I felt let down when this week at E3, our big demo of Uncharted 4 gave us a car chase. It’s the sort of muddy tropical free-for-all where pineapple carts are turned over to provide extra visual interest while you dodge gunfire: cinematic, sure, but also a bit ho-hum compared with Nathan Drake’s previous feats of derring-do.

After interviewing the game’s directors, though, I felt a bit differently. Making gameplay feel cinematic without just making it cinema is a key part of Uncharted’s appeal, says Bruce Straley, game director at Naughty Dog. One of the mottos around the office has been "keep it on the stick" — in other words, let players maintain control even during the game’s wildest moments. "Those big set pieces used to happen in video games in cut scenes," he says. "You’d do all this stuff, and you’d fight and puzzle-solve, and all of a sudden you get a cut scene. We really said, why can’t I be a part of that? So we created the tech to allow us to move around while a building is collapsing, or while a train is careening through a hillside." The result, he says, is "big, bombastic moments — but it’s 100 percent in your control. That’s what we’re trying to show off here."