Sony's first-ever PlayStation Experience event is going on this weekend, and the company is pulling out all the stops. It showed off the first real-time gameplay footage of "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End," which was originally announced in November 2013, and is still due out sometime next year.
So far, the game itself looks noticeably similar in style to the past three incarnations...with the "Indiana Jones" wannabe hero, Nathan Drake, climbing around lush environments while delivering frustrated one-liners to no one in particular. Eventually, he finds himself in the company of some bad guys doing bad things, so he takes to laying the smack down on them via some well-implemented sneaking, punching and shooting set pieces.
While the setting and character are very familiar, what is new here is the fidelity of the graphics, and the footage in the trailer below shows off some very rich textures and touches...from the rustle of foliage to the dust-up of stray bullets hitting rock. Also the animation, particularly with close quarter combat, looks more detailed and nuanced.
It's also worth mentioning here that at one point during the live event stream, the game seemed to glitch as Drake fell into (ahem...) uncharted territory. That glitch isn't present in the official gameplay video below, but it does make one wonder if this game will be ready for release next year. These kinds of demos are typically pretty tightly scripted, and to have a nasty glitch like that pop up at an important moment like this tells me that the folks at Naughty Dog still have some work to do on this title. Thanks to GameSpot for the heads up.
Check out the gameplay demo video below: