‘Uncharted’ Originally Had Tolkien-esque Elements. Bullet Dodged!
I love me some Uncharted. Like, love me. I love me some Lord of the Rings. Originally these two beauties were going to collide in the original premise of Uncharted. It never happened, gritty grunting shooters causing Sony to demand “realistic” games, whatever that means.
Such did not pass!
Speaking with NowGamer, ex-Naught Dog environment modeller Don Poole reveals “We were talking about a more ‘realistic’ game in terms of how it was modelled and rendered but the concepts were much more far out. One was a forest world where the antagonists lived underground.”
“It had elements of Tolkien in for sure. Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction.”
“So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony’s development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox’s success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time.”
I’m fine with that. Big time.