In a behind-the-scenes video, developers told how the chase came together providing an in-depth look at both the technical side and the storyline of the scene.
Although the famous action-adventure series Uncharted has been quiet for a while, the Uncharted movie starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake is well on track as well as Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves is about to be released on PS5 and PC. To brighten up the wait, IGN published a behind-the-scenes video where the developers from Naughty Dog – Kurt Margenau and Shaun Escayg – disclosed how one of Uncharted's best chase sequences from Uncharted 4: A Thief's End was created.
The Madagascar chase where Drake utilizes weapons and blows up vehicles and buildings escaping to reunite with his brother, Sam, is one of the most memorable scenes in the Uncharted series. The developers shared that one of the goals for it was to ensure that it worked as a climax of all the character relationships in the game. Escayg told: "There's a lot of emotional charges of these brothers being reunited. And we knew that at some point we wanted all of the dynamics, Nate, Sam, Sullivan, Nadine, Rafe and all the history that came with that to crescendo at a midpoint and in almost like a false victory, if you will, or the band's back together kind thing.”
According to the team, the action is intertwined with the narrative, matching Drake's state of mind simultaneously highlighting the struggles Nate deals with. Escayg explained: "I see [the entire chase sequence] as part of the turmoil, and that's kind of what dictates how much odds we want to put in front of Nate, how many obstacles we want to put in front of him. ... We were looking for opportunities to say 'What's the worst thing that could happen to our character?'"
The developers also discussed the main obstacles Naughty Dog faced developing the scene, including the troubles of camera controls. Margenau compared the game chase with the movie chase: "In the movie, someone's chasing you from behind. If somebody's chasing you from behind, that's not very exciting in a game because I cannot see what's behind me. It's really hard to make the player run away from stuff." The massive track that appears in front of the player was the solution to this hurdle, according to the developers.
Margenau also commented on how this kind of sequence evolved when it was brought to the PS5 within the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. According to the developer, this port allowed the team to start experimenting with such PS5's feature as haptics. "We wrote a whole new way of when you're driving the vehicle, there's a bunch of different systems in place in the vehicle itself," he said, "Every tire is modeled and how much it is gripping or slipping on the ground is modeled and then reflected in stereo, on the controller, in haptics. So you can kind of feel what every tire is doing just from holding a controller."
You can learn more about this chase sequence by watching IGN's behind-the-scenes video. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.