Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Developer(s)	Naughty Dog
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s)	Amy Hennig
Designer(s)	Neil Druckmann Hirokazu Yasuhara
Artist(s)	Bob Rafei Bruce Straley
Writer(s)	Amy Hennig Neil Druckmann Josh Scherr
Composer(s)	Greg Edmonson
Series	Uncharted
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4
Release date(s)	PlayStation 3 NA November 19, 2007[1] AUS December 6, 2007[2] EU December 7, 2007[2] PlayStation 4 EU October 7, 2015 UK October 9, 2015 NA October 9, 2015
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter, action-adventure, platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a 2007 action-adventure third-person shooter platform video game developed by Naughty Dog, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3. It is the first game in the Uncharted series. Combining action-adventure and platforming elements with a third-person perspective, the game charts the journey of protagonist Nathan Drake, supposed descendant of the explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he seeks the lost treasure of El Dorado, with the help of journalist Elena Fisher and mentor Victor Sullivan.^[3]

Originally announced at E3 2006,^[4] the title was developed for about two years before being released at the end of 2007.^[5] Seen as a key title for the PlayStation 3 during the holiday season of 2007,^[6] the game was well received by critics, many of whom cited its technical achievements and its high production values, similar to that of summer blockbuster films, though some of the mechanics, particularly the climbing segments, were less well received. The game went on to sell more than one million copies in ten weeks, and become part of the European best-selling Platinum Range of titles.^[7] A sequel titled Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was released in 2009, and a third entry to the series, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, was released in 2011. A fourth and final game, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, is set for release in April 2016. The game was released on the PlayStation 4, along with its two sequels, as part of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.

Plot

Treasure hunter Nathan Drake (Nolan North^[8]) recovers the coffin of the explorer Sir Francis Drake, his ancestor, from the ocean floor off the coast of Panama, using coordinates inscribed on Drake's ring in Nate's possession. He is assisted by journalist Elena Fisher (Emily Rose^[8]), who is there to record the events for a documentary. However, the coffin contains only a diary written by Sir Francis, pointing to the location of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold which he had sought, proving that he faked his death as Nate originally believed. After their boat is destroyed by a band of pirates who have been tracking Nate, Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle^[8]), Nate's friend and partner, rescues them; he and Nate ditch Elena in order to covertly travel into the Amazon and find El Dorado, where they discover clues that it is in fact a large gold statue, and that it was removed long ago by Spanish Conquistadors. Searching further, Nate and Sully discover a long-abandoned Kriegsmarine U-boat containing a missing page from the Drake diary that points to a southern tropic island in the Pacific where the statue was likely taken.

Before they can set out to find the island, Nate and Sully are accosted by Gabriel Roman (Simon Templeman^[8]), a competitive treasure hunter who has hired the services of mercenaries led by Atoq Navarro (Robin Atkin Downes^[8]), an archaeologist with knowledge of the statue, and Indonesian pirates led by Eddy Raja (James Sie^[8]), an old rival of Nate. The mercenaries hired by Roman and the pirates who have been tracking Nate are revealed to be working together to find El Dorado in order to compensate for money that Sully owes Roman. Nate is forced to hand Roman the page from the diary, who then shoots Sully in the chest. At that moment, the U-boat explodes from a torpedo Nate accidentally set off and he escapes. Elena arrives to confront Nate, but the two flee from the scene and fly off in Sully's plane to the Pacific island where the Spanish took the statue.

After getting shot down near the island and separated, Nate works his way to a fort where he spots Elena's parachute; though he spots her from afar he is unable to find her and continues into the fort, where he finds a message from Sir Francis stating that he had gone to the fort's Tower. Upon arriving at Drake's Tower, he is soon captured by Eddy, who demands that Nate assist him in finding the treasure. Elena rescues him, and they are shortly reunited, escaping from the fort, Eddy and his pirates. Drake suggests that they use a boat located at the custom house to escape the island, but Elena insists that they continue. The two work their way through a long-abandoned port city and discover, through a log book in its custom house, that the statue was moved further inland; as Elena spots Sully - alive and well - working with Navarro, heading north, they decide to follow him to the monastery. Along the way, Elena is forced to drop her camera to save herself from a collapsing bridge. Once inside the monastery, they locate hidden passages and rescue Sully, who survived thanks to Drake's diary blocking the bullet and played along to fool his captors.

Nate makes his way alone through the monastery to discover the location of the treasure vault mentioned in the diary, during which he overhears an argument between Roman and Eddy. Roman is unhappy that Eddy let Nate escape and failed to secure the island, all in exchange for his share of the gold of El Dorado. Eddy stresses that the island is cursed and that his men are being killed by something other than Nate, a claim Roman puts down to superstition and dismisses a furious Eddy. Nate then reunites with Sully and Elena, and with the latter, finds a series of maze-like passages below the monastery leading to a large vault in which they find Sir Francis Drake's body. Nate assumes that he died on the island searching for the treasure, depressing him so much that he leaves the ring behind. Before they move on, they encounter Eddy running scared for his life, chased by the descendants: mutated humans possessing incredible speed and strength. After Nate co-operates with Eddy to fight for their lives, he and Elena escape when Eddy is killed by the creatures, and find themselves in an abandoned Nazi submarine base built into the island. Nate ventures out to restore power to exit the base. During his exploration, he discovers that the Germans had sought the statue during World War II but that, like the Spaniards before them, learned that the statue was cursed; the creatures attacking them are in fact the mutated descendants of the original Spanish colonists. Sir Francis, knowing the statue's power, was actually trying to keep it on the island, before he was killed too by the mutants.

Nate attempts to return to Elena but finds her captured by Roman and Navarro. He and Sully fight through the descendants and soldiers to find that Roman has the statue. Navarro urges him to open it; inside is the mummy of El Dorado. The dust from the rotting corpse is inhaled by Roman, who begins to mutate, before Navarro shoots and kills him; he had planned to sell the mutagen as a weapon all along. He then has the statue lifted out by helicopter as his mercenaries are attacked by the descendants. Nate then jumps onto the net the statue is in. Elena, held captive in the helicopter, inadvertently causes the death of the pilot, and the helicopter then crashes onto a cargo ship used by Roman. A final fight breaks out between Nate and Navarro and his mercenaries before Nate can rescue Elena from the helicopter. As Navarro regains consciousness, Nate pushes the helicopter off the tanker, whilst the rope connecting the helicopter to the statue, which has become tangled around his leg, plunges Navarro and the statue into the ocean for good.

Moments later, Sully arrives on a small speedboat, having escaped the island and taken several boxes of treasure he found in the cave. Once aboard Elena returns Nate's ring and reminds him that because she lost her camera, he still owes her a story. As the boat sails towards the horizon, Nate assures her he will not break his promise.

In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, there is an option in the menu that the player can click on if they have Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, called "Drake's Fortune". If the player has completed the storyline of Drake's Fortune, $80,000 (game credits that can be used to purchase extra content) will be added to the player's in-game currency.

Gameplay

During combat, the player as Nate (left) can use corners and walls as cover, then use blind or aimed fire from cover against his opponents.

Gameplay in Uncharted is a combination of action-adventure gameplay elements and 3D platforming with a third-person perspective. Platforming elements allow Nate to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and perform other acrobatic actions that allow players to make their way along the ruins in the various areas of the island that Drake explores.^[9]

When facing enemies, the player can either use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes or can opt to use weapons.^[9] Melee attacks comprise a variety of single punches, while combo attacks are activated through specific sequences of button presses that, when timed correctly, offer much greater damage; the most damaging of these is the specific "brutal combo", which forces enemies to drop twice the ammunition they would normally leave.^[9] Nate can only carry one pistol and one rifle at a time, and there is a limited amount of ammunition per gun. Picking up a different firearm switches that weapon for the new one. Grenades are also available at certain points, and the height of the aiming arc is adjusted by tilting the Sixaxis controller up or down. These third-person perspective elements were compared by several reviewers to Gears of War,^[3][9] in that the player can have Drake take cover behind walls, and use either blind fire or aimed fire to kill enemies. In common with the aforementioned game, Uncharted lacks an actual on-screen health bar; instead, when the player takes damage, the graphics begin to lose color. While resting or taking cover for a brief period, Drake's health level, indicated by the screen color, returns to normal.^[9]

The game also includes vehicle sections, where Drake must protect the jeep he and Elena are in using a mounted turret, and where Drake and Elena ride a jet ski along water-filled routes while avoiding enemy fire and explosive barrels. While players direct Drake in driving the jet ski, they may also switch to Elena by aiming the gun in order to use her weapon — either the grenade launcher or the Beretta, depending on the chapter — in defense, or to clear the barrels from their path.^[9]

The game also features reward points, which can be gained by collecting 60 hidden treasures in the game that glimmer momentarily^[6] or by completing certain accomplishments, such as achieving a number of kills using a specific weapon, performing a number of headshots, or using specific methods of killing enemies.^[10] In subsequent playthroughs of the game, the player can use these rewards points to unlock special options; these include in-game bonuses such as alternate costumes and unlimited ammunition^[6] but also non-game extras, such as making-of videos and concept art.^[11] There are also several references to other Naughty Dog games, especially the Jak and Daxter series; this is done through the "Ottsel" branding on Drake and Fisher's wetsuits,^[12] a reference to the species that mixes otter and weasel found in the game, and the strange relic found in one of the earlier chapters, which is actually a precursor orb from the same series.

The game is censored when playing on a Japanese console to remove blood, which normally appears when shooting enemies; this follows the trend of other censored console games in the region, such as Dead Rising and Resistance: Fall of Man.^[13]

Development

After completing Jak 3, Naughty Dog assembled their most technically talented staff members and began development of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune under the codename Big.^[14][15] It was in full production for about two years, with a small team of engineers working on the game for about a year before hand.^[5] Naughty Dog decided to create a brand new IP rather than opt to develop a PlayStation 3 Jak and Daxter game—they wanted to create a franchise suitable for the new hardware, in order to develop such ideas as realistic human characters instead of stylized ones owing to limitations of previous hardware, as well as create something "fresh and interesting", although termed as 'stylized realism'.^[5] Inspiration was drawn from various sources in the action and adventure genres: pulp magazines, movie serials, and more contemporary titles like Indiana Jones and National Treasure.^[16] The team felt the sources shared themes of mystery and "what-if scenarios" that romanticized adventure and aimed to include those in Uncharted.^[14]

A platforming segment, showing Nathan attempting to scale the outer walls of the Fortress.

The game was first unveiled at E3 2006.^[4] From early previews of the game, inevitable comparisons of elements such as platforming and shooting between Uncharted and the well-known Tomb Raider series were drawn, earning the title the nickname of "Dude Raider".^[16][17] However, the developers saw their game as concentrating more on third-person cover-based play, in contrast to Tomb Raider's "auto-aiming" play and greater puzzle-solving elements.^[5] Throughout the game's development the staff tried to remain flexible and detached from the original design concepts; attention was focused on the features that worked well, while features that did not work were removed.^[18] The development team intended the game's main setting, the island, to play a big role in the overall experience. Feeling too many games used bleak, dark settings with monochromatic color schemes, they wanted the island to be a vibrant, believable game world that immersed the player and encouraged exploration.^[14]

In designing the characters, the artists aimed for a style that was photorealistic.^[16] The creators envisaged the main protagonist, Nathan Drake, as more of an everyman character than Lara Croft, shown as clearly under stress in the game's many fire fights, with no special training and constantly living at the edge of his abilities.^[5][17] Director Amy Hennig felt a heavily armored, "tough as nails" protagonist with a large weapon was not a suitable hero, and decided a "tenacious and resourceful" character would portray more human qualities. Supporting characters (Elena Fisher and Victor Sullivan) were included to avoid a dry and emotionless story.^[16] Fisher's character underwent changes during development; in early trailers for the game, the character had dark brown hair, but ultimately the color changed to blonde and the style was altered.^[19][20]

The game went gold in the middle of October 2007.^[5] A demo was then released on November 8, 2007 on the PlayStation Network^[21] before its final release on November 19 in North America. The demo was first placed on the North American store, and was initially region-locked such that it would only play on a North American PS3.^[22] However, this was later confirmed as a mistake, as the developers were apparently unaware that people from different regions could sign up for a North American account and download the demo; a region-free demo was released soon after.^[23]

Graphics and technology

Uncharted uses the Cell microprocessor to generate dozens of layered character animations to portray realistic expressions and fluid movements, which allow for responsive player control.^[24] The PlayStation 3's graphics processing unit, the RSX Reality Synthesizer, employed several functions to provide graphical details that helped immerse the player into the game world: lighting models, pixel shaders, dynamic real-time shadowing, and advanced water simulation.^[24] The new hardware allowed for processes which the team had never used in PlayStation 2 game development and required them to quickly familiarize with the new techniques; for example, parallel processing and pixel shaders. While Blu-ray afforded greater storage space, the team became concerned with running out of room several times—Uncharted used more and bigger textures than previous games, and included several languages on the disc.^[25] Gameplay elements requiring motion sensing, such as throwing grenades and walking across beams, were implemented to take advantage of the Sixaxis controller.^[14] A new PlayStation 3 controller, the DualShock 3, was unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, and featured force feedback vibration. Uncharted was also on display at the show with demonstrations that implemented limited support for vibration.^[26]

Being Naughty Dog's first PlayStation 3 game, the project required the company to familiarize themselves with the new hardware, and resulted in several development mistakes.^[25] The switch from developing for the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3 prompted the staff to implement changes to their development technology. Naughty Dog switched to the industry standard language C++ in order to participate in technology sharing among Sony's first-party developers—the company had previously used their own proprietary programming language GOAL, a Lisp-based language. In rewriting their game code, they decided to create new programming tools as well. This switch, however, delayed the team's progress in developing a prototype, as the new tools proved to be unreliable and too difficult to use. Ten months into full production, the team decided to recreate the game's pipeline, the chain of processing elements designed to progress data through a system. In retrospect, Naughty Dog's Co-President Evan Wells considered this the greatest improvement to the project.^[18] Additionally, the animation blending system was rewritten several times to obtain the desired character animations.^[14]

Trophies integration

The game was patched on August 4, 2008 in Europe and North America to version 1.01 to include support for the PlayStation 3's Trophy system.^[27] There are 47 trophies in the game that match the medals that can already be won in the game and one further trophy, the Platinum trophy, awarded when all other trophies have been collected; Uncharted was the first Naughty Dog game to include the Platinum trophy type.^[28] Similar to other PlayStation 3 titles that receive trophy support via downloaded patches, players must start a new save game to be awarded trophies, regardless of how many medals they received in previous playthroughs. This was enforced because the developers wanted to avoid the sharing of save data in order to gain trophies they did not earn.^[29] The patch was described as "incredibly easy" to implement, owing to the game already containing preliminary support for Trophies via its Medals system; it was also stated that these hooks were already included due to Naughty Dog's belief that Sony would roll out the Trophy system before the game's launch in November 2007.^[29] Despite mentioning that the game was developed as a franchise and that it lent itself to episodic content,^[5] it was later stated that no content available via download would be made for Uncharted.^[30]

PlayStation Home

During the Closed Beta of PlayStation Home on October 11, 2008, Naughty Dog released an Uncharted themed game space for PlayStation Home. This space is "Sully's Bar" from the game. In this space users can play an arcade mini-game called "Mercenary Madness", which during the Closed Beta, there were rewards. The rewards were removed with the release of the Home Open Beta. There are also three other rooms in this space, in which during the Closed Beta, users had to find out codes to the doors that accessed these rooms. The code entry to the rooms was also removed with the release of the Home Open Beta. The three other rooms are the "Artifact Room", "Archives", and "Smuggler's Den". There is an artifact viewer in the Archives and Smuggler's Den rooms. Also in the Archives there is a video screen that previews Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The Artifact Room only features seating and different artifacts for users to look at. This space was one of the first five-game spaces of the PlayStation Home Open Beta in North America, which Home went Open Beta on December 11, 2008.^[31] This space was released to the European version on November 5, 2009, almost a year after the Open Beta release. Naughty Dog has also released a game space for Uncharted's sequel on October 23, 2009 making Uncharted the first game series to have a game space for both games in its series.

Reception

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune received critical acclaim from game critics.^[32][33][39] Game Informer complimented the visuals and dialogue between the characters Drake and Fisher, calling them stunning and entertaining respectively.^[20] They further added that the production values appeared high, citing the level of detail and musical score.^[40] PlayStation Magazine echoed similar statements about the visuals and compared them to that of Crysis.^[14][41]

The overall presentation of the game received unanimous praise from critics, who recognized the game's high production values, describing them as "top-notch",^[42] "incredible"^[11] or comparing them to those found in Hollywood.^[10] When combined with the overall style of the game, this led many reviewers to compare Uncharted to summer blockbuster films,^[3][43][44] with the action and theme of the game drawing comparisons to the Indiana Jones film series and Tomb Raider.^[11][43] As part of the presentation, the game's story and atmosphere were also received well.^[3][43] The depth of the characters was praised, each having "their own tone".^[43] The voice acting was also received well, as the cast "nails its characterizations"; overall, the voice acting was described as a "big-star performance",^[10] "superb"^[44] and "stellar".^[3]

The technical achievements in creating this presentation were also lauded. The graphics and visuals were a big part of this, including appreciation of the "lush" jungle environments,^[3][9][11] with lighting effects greatly adding to them.^[44] The game's water effects were also appreciated.^[42] Overall, many reviewers commented that, at the time, it was one of the best-looking PlayStation 3 games available.^[36] Further to the graphical aspects, both facial animation and the animation of characters,^[12][44] such as Nate's "fluid" animations as he performs platforming sections were noted,^[3] although the wilder animations of enemies reacting to being shot were over-animated "to perhaps a laughable degree".^[9]

Criticism of the game included some graphical issues, such as texture pop-in and screen tearing.^[6][10] Of more concern were gameplay issues, including overall gameplay length being rather short, with reviewers completing the game in anywhere from six to ten hours,^[42][44] and some disappointment with the "not particularly memorable" vehicle sections;^[9] the inability to both aim weapons and drive the jet-ski was a well-noted issue.^[3][42] Further, some "frustrating, repetitive slogs"^[42] with regards to the "constant stream" of pirates and mercenaries,^[6] and "moving from one infuriating firefight to the next"^[11] towards the end of the game were cited as part of poorer elements of overall gameplay.

Awards

Uncharted received several accolades from web review sites such as Kotaku and IGN, who named it their PlayStation 3 game of the year.^[38][45] The game went on to sell one million copies after its first ten weeks of retail,^[46] and later became one of the first batch of titles to be released as part of Europe's budget Platinum range of best-selling titles.^[7]

Sales

Sony announced at E3 2009 that Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has sold over 2.6 million copies worldwide and was a hit for the PlayStation 3.^[47][48] Game designer Tim Schafer, well known as the creator of the early LucasArts adventure games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, has also lauded the game, saying he "liked it a lot", and jokingly thanked it for teaching him a new fashion tip (Nathan Drake's "half-tucked" shirt).^[49]

Sequels

Shortly after the release of the game, Naughty Dog's co-president, Evan Wells, stated that Uncharted had been developed as a franchise, and so a sequel was likely.^[50][51] It was later confirmed that the development team had put their work on the next installment of Jak and Daxter on-hold to work on Uncharted 2 for release in 2009.^[52] This sequel was revealed to be entitled Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in December, 2008 by Game Informer.^[53] A sequel to Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception was announced on December 11, 2010 and was released worldwide in November 2011.^[54][55] The fourth installment of the series, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, which is set to be the last main installment in the series, is set to be released in Q1 2016.^[56][57] A single-player-only remaster of the first three titles, titled Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, was released for the PlayStation 4 on October 7, 2015.^[58] Two spin-offs for the PlayStation Vita, titled Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Uncharted: Fight for Fortune was released in 2011 and 2012 respectively.^[59][60]

Film adaptation

Film producer Avi Arad has stated that he is working with a division of Sony to develop the film adaptation of Uncharted.^[61] In response to a question posed to Richard Lemarchand, lead game designer of Naughty Dog, on whether he would like to see a film adaptation of Uncharted, he replied "no comment.".^[62]

Since then, Columbia Pictures has confirmed that an Uncharted film is being developed. It is to be produced by Avi Arad, Charles Roven and Alex Gartner.^[63] As of June 30, 2009, it was confirmed that the Uncharted film has been in development for the last year-and-a-half.^[64] On October 8, 2010, it was revealed by Columbia Pictures that David O. Russell will be writing and directing the film.^[65] On May 26, 2011 it was reported that Russell had left the project.^[66] In July 2011 it was reported that Neil Burger, director of Limitless would direct the film adaption. In late August 2012 it was confirmed that Burger had left his position as director of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.^[67] Nathan Fillion has expressed great interest in playing Nathan Drake.^[68]

See also

• List of Uncharted characters
• List of regionally censored video games
• List of films based on video games

References

External links

• Official website