Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Developer(s)	Naughty Dog
Publisher(s)	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Director(s)	Shaun Escayg Kurt Margenau
Artist(s)	Tate Mosesian
Writer(s)	Josh Scherr Shaun Escayg
Composer(s)	Henry Jackman
Series	Uncharted
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4
Release	NA: August 22, 2017 PAL: August 23, 2017
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is an action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is scheduled for release in August 2017 for the PlayStation 4, as a standalone expansion to the Uncharted series. Players control Chloe Frazer, who seeks the Tusk of Ganesh in the mountains of India in the midst of a civil war, with the help of mercenary Nadine Ross. The game is played from a third-person perspective; players use firearms, and can use melee combat and stealth to defend against hostile enemies. Players solve puzzles, incorporating several platformer elements to advance the narrative, and navigate the game world on-foot or by vehicle.

Development of The Lost Legacy began soon after the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in May 2016. Chloe became the central focus of the game, with the story, design and gameplay elements reflecting her character. Claudia Black and Laura Bailey reprised their roles as Chloe and Nadine through voice and motion capture, and assisted writer Josh Scherr and creative director Shaun Escayg with the development of the characters and story. The game builds upon gameplay elements established in previous Uncharted titles.

Gameplay

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective, with platform game elements. Players use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to defend against the hostile enemies. Players control Chloe Frazer—a treasure hunter who is physically adept and is able to jump, sprint, climb, swim, swing and perform other acrobatic actions.^[1] Players traverse several environments, moving through locations including towns, buildings, and temples to advance through the game's story.^[2] Players use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to defend against the hostile enemies.^[3] Players also drive vehicles during some gameplay segments.^[4]

Players and companions may take cover behind objects during firefights, using it as a tactical advantage and to avoid taking damage from enemies.^[4]

In combat, players can use long-ranged weapons, such as rifles and shotguns, and short-barreled guns such as pistols and revolvers; handheld explosives such as grenades and C4 are also available.^[3] Though players can attack enemies directly, they have the option to use stealth tactics to attack undetected or sneak by them; the game introduces silenced weapons. While the game is linear, environments feature multiple paths for players to explore; maps are larger than those in Uncharted 4.^[4] The game features an artificial intelligence system in which hostile enemies react to any combat situation they are placed in; they respond to players' actions, coordinate tactics, and cooperate with each other. Players' companions are also controlled by the artificial intelligence, and can assist in combat by throwing objects at threats to stun them, announcing the location of unseen enemies, or using weapons to attack enemies.^[5] The game features periods without combat, often involving conversation between the characters. Players also have the ability to decide the outcome of some conversations through a dialog tree.^[6]

The game gives access to the multiplayer of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, with additional content tied into The Lost Legacy.^[5][7]

Plot

Set six to twelve months after Uncharted 4, The Lost Legacy explores the backstory and heritage of Chloe Frazer (Claudia Black). In the game, she explores the Western Ghats in the midst of a civil war, in search for the Tusk of Ganesh from a warlord named Asav (Usman Ally).^[3] To do so, she partners with mercenary Nadine Ross (Laura Bailey), an antagonist from Uncharted 4.^[2]

Development

Naughty Dog began developing The Lost Legacy following the release of Uncharted 4 in May 2016, initially exploring narrative ideas.^[7] Kurt Margenau and Shaun Escayg were chosen to lead development as game director and creative director, respectively. Margenau was selected for his knowledge of programming and passion for gaming and interactivity, while Escayg was chosen for his understanding of narrative structure.^[8] The game's original score was written by Henry Jackman, who previously composed Uncharted 4.^[9] While the development team initially contemplated creating Uncharted 5, they ultimately opted to create downloadable content (DLC) for Uncharted 4, as the simultaneous development of The Last of Us Part II led them to favor a more condensed story for a sooner release.^[10]

The Lost Legacy was announced at the PlayStation Experience event on December 4, 2016, alongside its debut gameplay trailer.^[11] A gameplay video was released in April 2017, revealing the release date and announcing the pre-order bonus: the original Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, emulated on PlayStation 4.^[12] A story trailer was also shown at E3 in June 2017.^[13] The game is scheduled to release for PlayStation 4 on August 22, 2017 in North America, and August 23 in Europe.^[14]

Story and characters

Claudia Black

Laura Bailey

Black and Bailey reprised their roles as Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, respectively, in The Lost Legacy.

The team initially experimented with featuring Nathan Drake, protagonist of previous Uncharted games, as a secondary character of The Lost Legacy, but found that it "felt superfluous".^[3] Several characters from the series were also considered as protagonists, including Charlie Cutter,^[5] Nathan's daughter Cassie,^[10] or his brother Sam Drake and friend Victor Sullivan, but the team felt that the latter's age would hinder gameplay.^[15] They ultimately decided to follow Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, who first appeared in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009) and Uncharted 4, respectively.^[1] The team opted to focus on new relationships with established secondary characters in the Uncharted series—a departure from The Last of Us: Left Behind (2014), DLC for The Last of Us (2013), which instead focused on a "missing chunk of the story". They originally envisioned for the length of The Lost Legacy to be similar to Left Behind; as development progressed, they realized the game would be larger than envisioned, and it became a standalone title instead of DLC,^[10] with an estimated length of over 10 hours.^[16]

Claudia Black and Laura Bailey portrayed Chloe and Nadine, respectively, in The Lost Legacy, reprising their roles from previous entries in the series. The actors' performances were mostly recorded using motion capture, with remaining audio elements recorded later in a studio. Video recording also captures the actors' faces, for animators to later construct. The game's actors regularly contributed to the development of the characters; co-writer Josh Scherr found that the actors were more familiar with the character motivations, and made changes to the script throughout production.^[17] The entire game was built around Chloe's character, with the narrative and art design reflecting her darker, grounded mindset.^[5] When returning to the character, Black was intrigued by the events that took place in her life between Uncharted 3 and The Lost Legacy.^[17] The team placed particular importance on Chloe's design in The Lost Legacy, maintaining familiar elements like her ponytail, but displaying minor signs of aging, including wrinkles. Her design and fighting style is different to that of Nathan Drake, and her animations were altered as a result.^[1] The team found Chloe's character interesting as her moral compass is a "little bit less directed" than Nathan's; while she would previously seek artefacts for the reward, she is interested in the history of the Tusk of Ganesh due to its relevance to her family, and Scherr found this interesting to explore.^[18] They were also interested in exploring Chloe's coping mechanism from previous games—while she would previously escape a dangerous situation to save herself, in The Lost Legacy she is forced to persevere due to her leadership.^[5] The team felt that Chloe would require a partner with military expertise, and Nadine would be desperate for more work following Uncharted 4. The pairing of the characters interested the team due to their vast differences: Chloe is "spontaneous and impulsive", whereas Nadine is structured, and they need to overcome their differences in order to work together.^[3] The writers felt that the banter between the characters required subtlety over previous series entries; during development, they sometimes found that the dialogue was "too friendly", and altered the script as a result.^[6]

The game's main antagonist, Asav, is portrayed by Usman Ally. When preparing for the role, Ally met with Escayg to discuss experiences with "despotic regimes that had their roots in what was perceived as a noble cause".^[19] Escayg compared Asav to Mexican medical surgeon José Manuel Mireles, having seen the documentary Cartel Land (2015); Ally described Mireles as "someone who had the charisma and belief in his people to rise up and lead a revolution of sorts", noting that Asav possesses a similar mindset and weaknesses.^[20] Ally found that relating to historical revolutionaries allowed him to better understand the character's logic.^[19] His childhood experiences living in corrupted countries also helped with his portrayal of Asav.^[20]

Scherr and Escayg wrote the game's story.^[17] While previous Uncharted games followed specific historical figures, such as Marco Polo and Henry Avery, The Lost Legacy instead focuses on the region, and the surrounding philosophy and culture, due to the shorter development team allowing less intensive research.^[18] The writers particularly focused on Hinduism and the surrounding mythology when researching for the story.^[17] With The Lost Legacy, the team aimed to include the "slightly more fantastical feel" from the first three Uncharted games, which was absent from Uncharted 4 due to the grounded story.^[6] Escayg found that the game's smaller scope allows a better opportunity to explore each individual character, and their stories and viewpoints. He also attempted to demonstrate characters' emotional state through gameplay. The story of The Lost Legacy allowed the team to explore gameplay elements scrapped from Uncharted 4.^[21]

Art design and gameplay

While some of the large open areas of Uncharted 4 were limited by the game's development schedule, Naughty Dog updated the production process to allow up to five teams to develop one location at a time for The Lost Legacy. The natural diversity of the Western Ghats area also allowed the team to explore different settings, including jungles, mountains, temples, and large urban environments.^[3] The iconography and deities of India was also appealing to the team.^[17]

The team reworked the combat mechanics of Uncharted to better fit Chloe's size and fighting style; while Nathan's fought like a brawler, Chloe utilizes more martial arts techniques.^[17] While players have the ability to control the character and camera in the game, the team orchestrate gameplay elements to construct specific shots. "There's very little that's random," said art director Tate Mosesian. The team sought to "take advantage" of color when composing shots in the game.^[22] The team purchased a lock picking set during development, to assist with the implementation of the in-game lock picking mechanics.^[3]

References

External links

• Official website