With Uncharted 4 on its way to the hands of players in March 2016, questions have arisen surrounding what’s next for Nathan Drake. Sure, it’s early for that, but sequels often begin production immediately after the launch of its predecessor. In an interview published in the latest Official PlayStation Magazine—via Gamesradar–Naughty Dog and Uncharted 4‘s co-director, Neil Druckmann, spoke of the game and referred to it as an “end of an era.”
We get more and more that feeling of this definitely [being] the end of an era for us as a studio…We’ve been with this franchise for almost ten years now from inception all the way to this point. Luckily, we don’t get too much time to dwell on that feeling because we’re so busy, but every once in a while… you know?
A wistful notion, but the Uncharted series is far from dead in many other aspects. With the Nathan Drake Collection to hold fans over until next March and an upcoming movie in Summer of 2017, simply titled Uncharted. So, while this may be the last installment in the series, Uncharted won’t be a series to be forgotten any time soon.
During the interview, Druckmann also revealed that when he and his colleague, Bruce Straley, were brought on as co-directors, following the previous director, Amy Hennig, parting ways with Naughty Dog. Druckmann stated that, as far as the game’s narrative, “[a] lot of things were pretty rough and just slotted in, so…we did a second pitch [of the revised story] for the team.” Anybody who’s worked with a team producing a story in any medium can attest to the slew of changes a story will go through before becoming the final product audiences experience, but major re-writes are a little more scarce.
As far as future projects, there are no clear plans for the Uncharted team’s immediate future. Interested players can get their hands on the game for PlayStation 4 in March, 2016.