10 Things You Didn't Know About Uncharted

WhatCulture

Uncharted fans, you owe Gears of War your gratitude.

Transcript

00:00The Uncharted series is up there with the most important exclusive properties in Sony's lineup.

00:05When the PS3 was struggling due to its ridiculously high price point,

00:09Drake's Fortune was the game that got many people on board.

00:12Since then, the Uncharted series has delivered some of the best gaming experiences that we've

00:16been able to have on a PlayStation console, from the underappreciated PlayStation Vita to the

00:22mighty PS4. But as is the case with most success stories, it hasn't always been smooth sailing.

00:27There were plenty of stressful moments and lots of last-minute changes, even in the beginning.

00:32I'm just from WhatCulture, and here are 10 things you didn't know about Uncharted.

00:37Number 10. Gears of War led to a complete overhaul of Uncharted 1.

00:42Gears of War and Uncharted were probably two of the main franchises that were really important

00:46when it came to establishing what a third-person cover shooter could be. But of course,

00:51one of them had to come first, and it happened to be Gears.

00:54The first game in the Microsoft exclusive series launched in November of 2006,

00:59a whole year before Drake's Fortune hit PS3. The timing of this meant that Drake's Fortune was

01:04midway through development when Gears dropped, and as a result, Naughty Dog took some lessons

01:09from their potential rival to make their own game better.

01:12In a chat with Ars Technica, former Naughty Dog developer Lucas Pope told them,

01:17one of the coolest things about Uncharted 1 is we had no f***ing idea what we were doing.

01:22Suddenly, Gears came out and showed them how to do it, so we changed everything six months before release.

01:28Naughty Dog had initially planned on giving Drake's Fortune a stiffer Tomb Raider-esque

01:32camera and control system, but Gears convinced them to grease those joints and make Uncharted feel

01:37a lot more fluid. And yes, this monumental, seemingly fundamental change to the game did in fact

01:43happened just six months before it was released.

01:45Number 9. Troy Baker went from Uncharted fan to Nate's brother in nine years.

01:51One of the most experienced voice actors in the gaming industry, Troy Baker,

01:55has appeared in a ridiculous amount of titles over the last 10 years,

01:59from Far Cry 4 to Batman Arkham City Death Stranding to The Last of Us 1 and 2.

02:04It's been a long and successful career, and in a way, he has Uncharted to thank for it.

02:09On numerous occasions, Baker has mentioned that he played Drake's Fortune around the same time

02:14it launched, and that it made him want to get into video game performance capture,

02:18which at that point was still in its primitive stages.

02:21Troy explained,

02:22And I remember sitting in a hotel room in Texas on a really terrible movie, and the only solace

02:28that I had was that a friend of mine let me borrow their PS3, this back in 2007, and he said,

02:34you have to play this game. So I started playing Uncharted. I really had no idea of the process

02:39and how they made this, and as I dug a little deeper, I found out they were really the tip

02:44of the spear when it came to, at that point, motion capture, and that created the process

02:48of performance capture. All I knew is that's what I wanted to do. I had to find a way to do that.

02:54It's super rare that a fan of a property ends up getting to actually be a part of it,

02:58but here you go. This is one of those stories. Nine years later, he would appear in Uncharted 4

03:03as Nate's long-lost brother Sam.

03:05Number 8. Uncharted 2's Overlooked PlayStation Heroes Crossover

03:09Uncharted 2's underrated multiplayer suite was an absolute blast to play,

03:14with the single-player campaign's slick climbing, shooting, and movement mechanics perfectly

03:19transferred to a PvP setting. And like with most multiplayer games, you were also able to

03:25customize your character's appearance. Okay, maybe customize is a little too generous. Basically,

03:30what you could do was choose a skin. That said, there were some very cool skins to choose from.

03:34You could play as a skeleton or even Drake in a wetsuit, but the best of the lot were the

03:39PlayStation Hero skins. This cheap bit of DLC released a few months after the game itself,

03:44and allowed players to enter multiplayer dressed as a host of PlayStation icons,

03:50including Nathan Hale from Resistance, Sev from Killzone, Cole and Zeke from Infamous,

03:55or even a Chimeran or Helgar Soldier.

03:57Number 7. Drake's Fortune Spearheaded Trophies on PlayStation

04:01Today, it's a must that every single PlayStation game supports trophies,

04:05but some of us remember back into the dark, dark days where this wasn't the case.

04:10Sony's version of Achievements first arrived in 2008, months after the launch of Drake's Fortune

04:16at the tail end of 2007. Thankfully, the decision was made to add trophies to the game retroactively,

04:23making it one of the very first titles to bless players with that oh-so-sweet acquisition sound

04:27effect. Other big names included in that first wave of trophy-enabled games were LittleBigPlanet,

04:33Resistance 2, and Warhawk. But the very first game to utilize the trophy system overhaul was Housemarque's

04:39excellent Super Stardust HD. With Housemarque finally being acquired by Sony after their

04:45massive hit with Returnal in 2021, it's safe to say they're a huge part of Sony history now.

04:51Number 6. Nate, Elena, and Chloe's actors appeared on TV together before Uncharted

04:56They had their ups and their downs, but by the end of Uncharted 4,

05:00Nate and Elena had finally settled down to live a normal-ish life.

05:04No matter what happened throughout the series, the two characters just seemed like a good fit together.

05:09A spark that can be attributed partly to the chemistry between actors Nolan North and Emily

05:14Rose, who were good friends in real life. It's also a little-known fact that Uncharted is not the only

05:19project the two have worked together on. In the first half of the 2010s, Rose led a TV show called

05:25Haven, a supernatural drama set in a town that is plagued with occult happenings. In the third season,

05:32North guest starred as Will Brady, a man who accidentally sends everyone else into a coma.

05:37In addition, beloved Uncharted actor Claudia Black, who plays Chloe Fraser, also guest starred in this

05:44same season, appearing in another episode alongside Nolan North.

05:48Number 5. Nathan Drake was in an early version of Uncharted The Lost Legacy

05:532017's The Lost Legacy is an excellent spin-off starring Nadine Ross and Chloe Fraser searching for

05:59the Tusk of Ganesh. It's a worthy addition to the franchise in every way, but stands out as an Uncharted game

06:06without Nathan Drake. Barring a quick mention, he's absent from the game entirely, but at one point,

06:12Naughty Dog did consider giving their famous protagonist a supporting role. On PlayStation

06:16blog, writer Josh Schur explained that the team toyed with a few ways of incorporating Nate into

06:22the game, but ultimately they decided against it, feeling like Uncharted 4 was a perfect end for the

06:28character. In addition to Nate, other Uncharted characters almost rocked up in the game too,

06:32including Sully, Nate and Elena's daughter Cassie, and Charlie Cutter. Speaking of which…

06:39Number 4. Why Charlie Cutter Disappears Halfway Through Uncharted 3

06:43The British tough guy with a seemingly uncharacteristic fear of tight spaces,

06:48Charlie Cutter, was first introduced in Uncharted 3 as Nate's latest ally.

06:53The character had some of the funniest dialogue in the game, and he was a huge bright spark in

06:57Uncharted 3's early sequences, though it was massively disappointing when he was abruptly

07:02written out of the story at the midway point. While it would have been great to see him in the

07:06second half of the game, there is a pretty good reason why you don't get to.

07:11Turns out Cutter's voice actor Graham McTavish snagged a role in Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies

07:16around the same time Uncharted 3 was in development, and as a result, his schedule became too crowded.

07:22There were plans to include him in more of the game, but unfortunately he was written out with

07:26a broken leg instead. Number 3. Uncharted 3's plane scene inspired Mission Impossible 5

07:33Hollywood is in Uncharted's DNA, especially now there's an Uncharted movie, but Uncharted 3

07:39actually went the other way and inspired a movie scene. The sequence in which Nate boards a huge

07:44cargo plane that crashes into the desert was something that director Christopher McQuarrie looked at when

07:49making the fifth installment of the Mission Impossible series. That film opens with a scene

07:54where Tom Cruise attempts to board a flying plane, with the similar scene in Uncharted 3 being one of

08:00the main inspirations behind the stunt. Number 2. Uncharted 2 got Nolan North a role in Star Trek.

08:07Another connection between Uncharted and Hollywood, if you watched 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness,

08:13you may have noticed a familiar face and voice towards the end of the film.

08:17Yes, Nolan North plays a crew member of the USS Vengeance who's shot down when Khan, Kirk and Scotty

08:24stormed the command room. It's a teeny tiny role, but it was cool to see him on screen nonetheless.

08:29And according to North, he landed the part because director J.J. Abrams was a big fan of Uncharted 2,

08:35specifically its opening train scene. In return, it seems like there's a little bit of an Uncharted

08:41easter egg in J.J. Abrams' Star Wars Rise of Skywalker, as that outfit Poe wears is a dead ringer

08:48for Nate's outfit in Uncharted 3. Number 1. Nate doesn't ever take damage.

08:54Uncharted has been around since 2007, but it wasn't until 2018 when we learned this incredibly

08:59interesting fact about the way the games work. You know that red HUD element that's displayed

09:04whenever Nate is being shot at by enemies, that's not meant to represent blood or damage.

09:10It's actually a sign that his luck is getting close to running out.

09:14This was revealed by Jonathan Cooper, an animator who worked on Uncharted 4,

09:18revealing that basically Nate only dies when he takes enough near misses.

09:23So yeah, every bad guy in the Uncharted series has even worse aim than we thought.

09:27Of course, Chloe's HUD lights up in the same way across the Lost Legacy,

09:31creating a group of dedicated treasure hunters just making it through their adventures by the skin of

09:36their teeth. That's the end of our list, but do let me know down in that comment section if you can

09:41think of any other curious tidbits about Uncharted you reckon most people don't know.

09:45As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me.

09:50If you're liking it, come say hi to me on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonald,

09:54but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more gaming goodness.

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