When the game “Uncharted 4” hit the stores on May 10, 2016, even the toughest game critics went “Wow!” An action-adventure third-person shooter developed by a company called Naughty Dog immediately got rave reviews with rankings ranging from 9 to 10 on a scale of 10.
It took the developers more than three years to finish the product, but for millions of fans worldwide the sequel to Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was worth the wait.
The game, where the player has to complete dozens of action-packed sequences, including car and bike chases, fights and shootouts, features a large map, non-linear plot with multiple story lines, great soundtrack, and above all – stunning graphics.
Here’s Jeremy Yates, the game’s lead animator, talking about his work in an interview on Sony Playstation’s YouTube channel:
It was like “create a character that moves believably, that has realistic ways, but also is fluid and responsive” – and that is just about the most difficult thing you can ask.
Instead of drawing characters and their movements by hand, the creators of “Uncharted 4” used what gaming industry, as well as movie industry pro’s call “mo-cap” – motion capture technology. The actors had to wear special helmets and put green dots on their skin, so that mo-cap equipment could trace in real time their movements and facial expressions.
Richard McGonagle, the actor who plays Victor Sullivan, says it was far beyond the usual “sitting in the sound booth” routine.
Gordon Hunt, who is the director, came over, and, I’d known him for a while, and he said: “this is what we gonna do: you gonna start out here and you’re gonna go there,” and I said “Gordon, what are you talking about – moving around? This is a game, right?”. And he said “Yeah, that’s motion capture”. And I went “Motion… what?”
Uncharted 4 definitely raised players’ expectations, but there’s still a lot that the gaming industry has to offer. It’s expected that other titles, like the sequel to the Mafia series and the game called No Man’s Sky, will push the limits even further.
Mafia 3, scheduled for release in the fall of 2016, is set in 1960’s New Orleans. The game’s protagonist is Lincoln Clay – a Vietnam vet who takes on the mob to build his own crime syndicate. Besides the usual intense gunfights and car chases for which Mafia games are known, the developers promise new tricks, like the feature they call “drive like a madman,” when Lincoln interrogates informants by breaking all possible traffic laws.
No Man’s Sky, with a release date scheduled for August 2016, promises players an open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets. Unlike other space shooter titles, No Man’s Sky has much more to it – it’s is about exploration, survival, combat and trading.
So no matter what kind of games you prefer, whether it’s a strategy, space quests, or good old-fashioned open-world action shooters, among this year’s most anticipated releases there’s something for everyone.
And with new features used by the developers – from the uncharted realms of Uncharted 4, to the above-mentioned 18 quintillion unique planets in No Man’s Sky, it seems that there’s no limit to what you can do.
