With a game series that has spanned as long as it has, it’s no secret that Nathan Drake must look different every iteration. Just updating the textures and the resolution around him would look odd so Naughty Dog has detailed how Nathan Drake will change in the upcoming adventure, Uncharted 4.
The team, after an amazing outing at the PlayStation Experience, sat down to discuss just how they are changing Drake and done so during the game’s development.
“A lot of that stuff we were definitely able to handle in shader as opposed to sculpting it into the high res, and that helped a lot to maintain, from as he goes in-game to cinematic, the same level of detail. So, nothing drops in terms of detail level once he gets into the game.”
This quote of course is talking about how the character will look the same in and out of cinematics, something that is often not the case in many games. Character detail is something that 2014 has put a major focus on and with games like Destiny and Sunset Overdrive offering a seamless transition between cut scene and gameplay, Uncharted 4 will surely be on that level.
The team, in this hour-long panel at the event, also discussed the many techniques they are using and have used to update Nathan Drake’s appearance. They went into detail about how the PS4 gives them the power to add “perfect fabric texture” for his clothing, sturdy bone structure so that the character does not rag doll in a strange way, and they even made a point of calling out they previous high mark of 120 facial poses with Uncharted 4‘s 850 facial poses. Now Drake can do Blue Steel in perfect form.
It is also worth noting that this version of Drake, seen at the event, will probably not be the final form. As many fans have pointed out, the cut scenes from E3 and from the PlayStation Experience were incredibly different and featured a less detailed and more rugged Drake the second time around. Maybe the final form will be even less detailed or maybe it was just too early to tell but be on the look out for rendered images that may not be the real thing.
