Uncharted 4 should eclipse everything that has come before

After watching the E3 demo for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, I’m only too anxious to get my hands on one of the recent generations of Sony goodies.

The fourth and final chapter in the cheeky bounty hunter’s adventures will centre on Drake’s ultimate mission for revenge.

The seven-and-a-half minute demo showcased Drake and his father-figure Scully bursting out of some gloomy temple/crypt into a vibrant bustling marketplace that looked like somewhere in the Caribbean.

After barging their way through commuters, it doesn’t take long for the troublesome duo to be attacked by militia, pots and wooden structures splintering and crumbling all around them as AK-47s demolish the stunning environment.

Drake and Scully proceed to shoot their way down romantic streets, playing with their environment, enemies and each other in comical Disney-like fashion.

Drake swaps between his iconic shooting and face-punching as he defiantly charges enemies. It all seems too cinematic, looking more like an interactive film than a game.

The amount of intelligent interplay between characters and their world is hopefully not just the typical showcase illusions but an integral part of the actual game.

Knowing Naughty Dog and the attention they put into their games, this will be so. Drake and Sully will constantly humorously comment and move in relevance to the status quo.

Revenge is on the cards for Drake.

The lads then end up running across rooftops being pursued by an armoured truck lambasting them with shells, eventually jumping into a 4×4 in a completely streamlined procedure.

A heart-stopping driving session then follows, with the boys ploughing through fences and stalls, narrowly evading rolling innocents, desperately trying to evade their nemesis truck dogging their tyre tracks.

The pair swerve in and out of alley-ways, the level being a complete maze which players can decide how to navigate. Scaffolding is brought crashing down as Drake crashes through support beams.

The thieves finally catch up with Drake’s brother, Sam, who is also being pursued by an armed convoy. Drake launches his grappling hook onto a vehicle on the highway and becomes daringly dragged along with the procession.

The trailer ends with Drake slamming into a collection of support beams under the highway and it all ends on a serious cliff-hanger.

Uncharted 4 - You are free to blaze your own trail

You’re free to blaze your own trail.

So what we can gather from this nerve-tingling flash of Naughty Dog’s illustrious digital underwear is that we will get more of the same of Uncharted’s exotic action adventure, with things like driving and grappling hooks thrown in to further augment an already staunch franchise.

Climbing historical wonders, jumping on grunts’ heads and getting tangled up in some lethal conspiracy are all in a day’s work for Drake.

It seems like the invisible walls blocking players are progressively disappearing from games, as developer power further emancipates players to fully exploit teeming landscapes.

Uncharted has environments like no other.

Developer commentary leads us to believe the climatic finale of the 8-year series is going to be expansive and unrestricted.

It sounds like Drake will finally have the uninhibited freedom to explore and steal to his heart’s content, perhaps even some kind of open-world atmosphere.

This is Drake’s swansong, and it’s going to be magnificent. The epic is expected for a Spring 2016 release.

That being said, Amy Henning, one of the lead story writers for this title and its predecessors left the project, apparently setting game development back 8 months.

Drake’s voice actor – North – had this to say “I can’t really say too much about that, but I will. We had shot eight months of her story, and it was all thrown away.”

So it looks like a lot of work needs to be caught up in the story department, possibly meaning a reinterpretation of the plot.