Uncovering Amy Hennig's Uncharted 4

[the-pi-guy]

[Legend]

Will watch later.

[kitler53]

an hour and a half.   can you summarize any interesting points into a paragraph that is no more than 3 sentences?

[Legend]

an hour and a half.  can you summarize any interesting points into a paragraph that is no more than 3 sentences?

This video explores the original, scrapped vision for Uncharted 4 under creative director Amy Hennig before she left Naughty Dog in 2014, revealing major narrative differences like Nathan Drake's brother, Sam, initially being cast as a villain [02:33]. It also uncovers abandoned gameplay concepts, including a heavy reliance on hand-to-hand combat over gunplay and fully playable flashback sequences set during the era of pirate Henry Avery [06:22]. By piecing together unused levels and leftover game files, the creator provides fans with a comprehensive look at the ambitious alternate version of the game that was ultimately rebuilt [01:23:28].


Gemini makes the video sound like the middle hour is just filler lol.

[the-pi-guy]

Era tldr

This is worth a watch. I'm amazed that the mo-cap for cutscenes of the original version are a part of this.

This really makes a lot of sense out of how the project evolved into the final version. It also lines up with and fills in the blanks of what Jason Schreier described in his book.

You can tell that a big part of the direction was to minimize the role of gun combat in the game.

- The prison, as described, is similar, with a similar conclusion but Rafe absent. It seems to be clearer that Sam is captured instead of killed, and just presumed dead by Nate. It is highlighted that Nate and Sam being brothers is a later game twist.

- The opening salvage operation -> 'A Normal Life' in U4 was instead instead Drake, Elena & Sully grabbing a key (and losing it to the coastguard) from a shipwreck in an environment like 'At Sea'.

- The auction was instead a gala set in London, and heist-like, with the game swapping to difference characters (and playing as Sully) trying to retrieve that key from an exhibit. Cutter is here. The dialogue for some of the cutscenes is shown and I think it's quite funny. Nate meets Sam here briefly.

- Scotland seems similar, but being accompanied by Elena, Sully and Cutter(?) for most of it. It seems to conclude in a similar way, but Nadine isn't a part of the plot. Nate and Co. happen upon and team up with Sam & Rafe there. The temple(?) collapse happens, but Nate leaves Sam & Rafe behind.

- Madagascar. The plot description is thinner later into the game. The big set-piece is that Nathan chases Rafe on motorbikes, instead of the escape with Sam. Nate is captured.

- Nate, Sam and now Rafe on the boat headed to Libertalia. It seems like 'At Sea' was just a cutscene on this version. Sam intentionally abandons Nate on an island.

- 'Marooned' seemed to lean into survival mechanics for gameplay. Nate starts a fire and the player hunts for food, over several days in the story.

- This leads into Nate on the island that houses Libertalia. It seems to be very stealth based. A segment is described where Nate, on a boat, has to navigate around and through reeds that stall it. I think this is the first described section where Nate gets a gun (an old pirate flintlock pistol). One described weapon appears to be bolas. This is the most gameplay refined section of the game.

- The last clear narrative element is a confrontation between Nate and Rafe (with the mo-cap and previs in the video), where Rafe disarms and attempts to kill Nate to stop all possibility of him and Sam reconciling and working against himself(?). Rafe picks up a cutlass and the player has to scramble around the environment for items to defend themselves and attack Rafe (like a candlestick holder). Sam arrives and interjects in the fight.

- Nate and Sam after this point work together, with one plot point being Sam wanting to reclaim his boat.

There's a lot that's similar, and a lot that's differently. A lot of 'mini-game' like gameplay, like Nate (in a gameplay sequence) managing the threat of a surrendering enemy.

[Legend]

Yeah cool to see the mocap. Had no idea cutter was fully in the game originally.

[darkknightkryta]

I'm guessing as to what changed:

Streamlined the game to get to shooting things faster
Probably wanted Troy Baker in there with Nolan North as fan-service, re-wrote story
Didn't want to assume what Amy had planned, so changed the characters to suit their story telling, added Nadine to replace Sam as a villain
Replaced Elena with Sam, to make Sam a good guy
Cut Cutter since he was filming The Hobbit and they probably didn't want to deal with that.
Re-used most of the shooting sections from the game
Wrote a terribad story to re-use the prison sequence
Added a flashback, which Amy mentions they might have figured out to do as they were fleshing things out
Finished up the story to prevent sequels.

My take?  The original story flowed better.  Making Elena a treasure hunter with Nate would have made sequels easier to do and they didn't know what to do with her after re-writing the story to make Sam a full good guy.  I could see where Amy was going with Raf and Sam, so I can't say the changes were for the better.  I can also see why Amy went with less guns, she was taking feedback about Nathan mowing down armies to heart, but, at the same time, Druckman (I'm assuming) is right, it's a game, and cutting out the gunplay was making it boring (I'm assuming it was boring or else no one would have panicked).  I'm not for them finishing up the story, but at the same time, I can see them wanting to put it on ice since Amy was gone and Sony would have forced a sequel at some point.  They were kind of safeguarding that. I hope.

[kitler53]

i've never understood why uncharted has been criticized for being a "mass murder".  

yeah, him and like literally every video game character ever.  even family friendly characters like mario murders thousands of "dudes" per game.  

[the-pi-guy]

i've never understood why uncharted has been criticized for being a "mass murder". 

yeah, him and like literally every video game character ever.  even family friendly characters like mario murders thousands of "dudes" per game. 

Yeah, I've always thought it was goofy. 

People will bring up the ludonarrative dissonance - that there's a conflict between Nate being a mass murderer in gameplay and a charming guy during cut scenes, but I still think that's extremely true of most games. 
Mario is supposed to be a nice plumber guy, yet he's crushing turtles by the thousands. 

[Legend]

Yeah, I've always thought it was goofy.

People will bring up the ludonarrative dissonance - that there's a conflict between Nate being a mass murderer in gameplay and a charming guy during cut scenes, but I still think that's extremely true of most games.
Mario is supposed to be a nice plumber guy, yet he's crushing turtles by the thousands.

It's not even a game thing. Indiana Jones would kill people yet those films of course never acted like that mattered. It's true of all adventure stories. Bad guys don't matter.

I'm guessing as to what changed:

Streamlined the game to get to shooting things faster
Probably wanted Troy Baker in there with Nolan North as fan-service, re-wrote story
Didn't want to assume what Amy had planned, so changed the characters to suit their story telling, added Nadine to replace Sam as a villain
Replaced Elena with Sam, to make Sam a good guy
Cut Cutter since he was filming The Hobbit and they probably didn't want to deal with that.
Re-used most of the shooting sections from the game
Wrote a terribad story to re-use the prison sequence
Added a flashback, which Amy mentions they might have figured out to do as they were fleshing things out
Finished up the story to prevent sequels.

My take?  The original story flowed better.  Making Elena a treasure hunter with Nate would have made sequels easier to do and they didn't know what to do with her after re-writing the story to make Sam a full good guy.  I could see where Amy was going with Raf and Sam, so I can't say the changes were for the better.  I can also see why Amy went with less guns, she was taking feedback about Nathan mowing down armies to heart, but, at the same time, Druckman (I'm assuming) is right, it's a game, and cutting out the gunplay was making it boring (I'm assuming it was boring or else no one would have panicked).  I'm not for them finishing up the story, but at the same time, I can see them wanting to put it on ice since Amy was gone and Sony would have forced a sequel at some point.  They were kind of safeguarding that. I hope.

It's impressive though how the reboot took just two years to make. With that in mind, a lot of these problems with it seem pretty reasonable.

[nnodley]

I think just the fact they were going to make it more melee based, meant it was going to be not great.  And for the fact that they took criticism from the smallest vocal minority about the murder spree crud makes me glad it got turned around with Druckmann and whoever else. It's probably my second fav UC game behind UC 2

[darkknightkryta]

It's not even a game thing. Indiana Jones would kill people yet those films of course never acted like that mattered. It's true of all adventure stories. Bad guys don't matter.
It's impressive though how the reboot took just two years to make. With that in mind, a lot of these problems with it seem pretty reasonable.

Reusing what's there is a time saver.  So patching what was finished and stringing them together probably didn't take more than a year.  The new cutscenes and what have you?  Yeah, I'm sure people weren't sleeping.