early on, emails would go out from the character team and they would send these videos and they would show like, what they could now do with the eyes or that they could now get sweat happening on the skin it's like "this is ridiculous", and kind of super-rad! hey brother... watch out! to see what uncharted on a next-gen console is going to look like that was a question we just had to find out for ourselves.

i think the biggest design thing that came out of the new hardware was literally just the bigger spaces. we have bigger levels than we've ever had before maybe ten times the size at least of explorable space. the challenge for us is, and the thing thats been super hard is how do we give you more choices and make the pacing feel just as intense as when things have been more linear for us. it does introduce challenges as far as telling a very specific story. well, you still have point a to point b

you just have different branches now to get there. so you now have three or four different ways to get there but you still have to get there. now, the complexity comes from that every one of those ways has to be thought out and well designed. and we were able to stick by a core talent of what i think naughty dog's art is all about which is this hand crafted, this very hand placed this very well directed every step along the way, composition of art.

we let you have a lot of choices but it's moving forward at a very fast pace. right! right! wait! wait! don't worry, i got this... i got this! i got this! i don't got this! we've been able to make the world so much bigger than we have ever been able to make before and also at the same time improve the detail of any one area

so we've increased the density of detail and the size of the world, all at the same time. so, with larger worlds comes larger possibilities and larger possibilities usually means more detail. in fact, that's one of the things we are really shooting for in this game is a higher level of detail on the playstation 4 and the experience for our gamers. so, the resolution involved in that requires a lot more work a lot more thought and a lot more time

it's not just "any old dirt will do" it's a very specific dirt and how wet is that dirt? how many pebbles are pushing up in that dirt? and you take that consideration and you apply it to everything, everything! one of the things that i think improved the most from uncharted 3 to uncharted 4 is texture resolution. bigger texture means more detail. the new hardware just allows us to achieve what we have been trying to achieve the whole time and that's just believability and complexity. there is a lot of passion in all these small, small, small details that really shine through

and it's because we really empower people who care to make the difference that they want to make. nathan drake in game has at least eleven to twelve outfits. and that's just for nathan drake. think about we have elena, we have nadine, we have rafe, we have sully we have drake's brother. everything suddenly needs a level of thought and scrutiny that we didn't have to do before. it makes a much more rich experience, a much more immersive experience but it takes a lot of time.

just the quantity of inter-actable things in the environment i mean, we really want our jungles and our environments to feel alive. and being able to have hundreds and hundreds of objects that can be destructible, that's moving around it impacts gameplay in that your cover can be destroyed and you have to move around more but even outside of that, just seeing all this stuff happening the screen is so much more alive, the world is so much more alive. everyone here respects the craft of making a video game

and that why shouldn't every part of this game be the best thing, the best art have the design be serious, considered design and crafted experience for the player. and once that kind of gets into the dna it kind of takes over everything. everybody from the very top to the very bottom we do have a structure, we are flatter than a lot of places but we do have a structure but everybody listens to everybody, if somebody has a fantastic idea, they are encouraged to just shout it out and people will listen. that feedback is welcome and its encouraged

and we want that because that kind of format is ultimately going to challenge all of us and challenge everybody to say, "can we do better?" what's most important is when you stand back and look at the whole and when you are running through the level and you are experiencing and playing through the gameplay the environments, the characters, the art. it's all there to just support the experience, it should not stand out as the experience. come on!

gun it! here, take this! it's really an interesting challenge. if we do our job right, hopefully people aren't going, "wow! that's a great animation" they are just engrossed and they are believing it. ha ha! i think we lost them! hey nate, we can never, ever come back to this city. add it to the list. the biggest change we have in uncharted 4 would be the

use of the head cams and facial markings and facial animation. for the first three games this has always been hand animated. now we are in a unique situation where we are now capturing those actor's faces and we are getting all the great details that that brings in and then we inject the look and feel that we have come to expect from the characters that we know. every animator that we hire at naughty dog has to be really good at working with motion capture because a lot of their job will be doing that but they also have to be a really, really good animator because when we do need to animate something that we can't capture

it has to look exactly like something that we captured yeah? can i help you? yeah, i'm looking for my little brother sam? it's good to see you again nathan oh my god sam! alright, alright, take it easy, take it easy! last gen you would actually get a black frame between gameplay and cutscene which would mean it actually takes you out of the experience

it's a little tell. ok now i'm just watching something so that's been a huge thing the playstation 4 has allowed us to do that all of our cut scenes are now in game what it boils down to is blurring the line between when do we make this a pure cinematic moment that you just sit back and enjoy versus actually just saying no, we need you, we need you right now, do your thing. people don't only watch watch passively a story they wanna be able to participate in it. i think the focus as always is, what serves the story?

and traditionally, and this isn't any different, we try to keep the big action in the hands of the player. so it's not something you finish in the game and then get to watch, it's something you get to experience. you reach that point yourself. what we are trying to so is make them richer. make them more playable, give the player more options within those set pieces so they have a really interesting combat encounter with a lot of different options and a lot going on within a set piece that's falling apart all around you.

the gameplay, the environment, the music everything is coming together to make you as the player feel like you are nathan drake. and to feel like you are on this grand adventure. pre-order now, release date 10th may