Interview: Making Drake's Fortune

On a swanky press trip, we met with Naughty Dog game director Amy Henning, for a detailed behind-the-scenes interview feature on the epic new PS3 adventure.

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Kikizo: One of the questions I think people will have as they go through the story, is the sort of obvious connection between Nathan and Sir Francis Drake and what it means. You're talking about this title as becoming a franchise, implying that you're looking to do sequels, so does that mean we won't discover the big answers in this particular game?

Henning: Well, I think the things that are core to the story definitely resolve themselves in this game. But in terms of opening up questions about the characters, and not just Nate but the other characters in the game, and what may have happened with them in the past or the future, we're not closing every door, because of course our hope is that this will become a successful series and the genre is suited to having a serialised adventure, but without that sense of cliff-hanger non-completion.

The emphasis is on hand-to-hand combat as well as gunplay.

Kikizo: Cool. That was a good answer. Because you can always just create 'new' secrets for number two, right?

Henning: Oh, yeah. I think it would be a mistake if the primary questions we set up about the history and the story don't get answered, it would be really unsatisfying...

Kikizo: Otherwise it would just become 'Lost'...

Henning: Well there you go! And we don't have that luxury! Or that budget. So we want to leave some questions open but just secondary ones about the history of the characters.

Kikizo: Sure. One of the things I found interesting in talking to a number of Sony studios lately is they've got this improved technology for PS3 now with the Edge toolset and also developing their own proprietary stuff as well, like you guys have done with your animation system for this game which looks great. But the group is sharing a lot of technology as well, so how much of what we see in this game is homegrown stuff?

Henning: Almost all. I mean it's hard to say where the dividing line would be, because the ICE team, which was headed up by Mark Cerny, was actually on site in our office throughout development and at the beginning of the PlayStation 3 development, so we benefited greatly from their proximity. And there are certain very base level architecture type things that are shared across the studios, but in general, our game engine, our rendering engine, those kinds of things, those are all proprietary. There are a lot of sisters studios though, I mean Sony Santa Monica, and Insomniac, and so there's a close relationship there, and we definitely on an informal basis share information and technology. But it's not like sharing engines, it's more like saying, hey we figured this out, don't go down the same road, go this way!

Kikizo: With the jungle environments we see in the game, and with the emphasis on exploring, just how deep do those go?

Henning: It's more about exploring the immediate area, and the ruins that are inside there, only because, we didn't want to set the player off on this too open ended adventure where they just get plopped down and figure out where the hell they're supposed to go. We wanted to make it open-ended problem solving within a limited area, so you can can think how I'm going to get through this problem without taking five different routes out of a jungle. Maybe it's something we'll explore in the future if it seems like it will be conducive to the gameplay. But I think when you want to tell a powerful story there's a certain linearity that goes along with that, as long as there's an open-ended choice within that linearity I think players are still sensing that.

Kikizo: We've seen some vehicle gameplay and chase sequences. What can players expect from the vehicular sections?

Henning: You've seen some fusing of the Jet ski and people even saw that a long time ago in concept art form, there's this kind of pirate Jet ski that you can find on the island and use to your benefit to get from point A to point B, and fight your way through pirate patrols on your way, and instead of being a rail shooter this is more that you're driving and she's shooting, so you have a bit more freedom in that one.

Kikizo: How would you describe that balance of action versus adventure in the Uncharted?

Henning: If you think action as being gunplay and combat, I would say we've tried to strive for about a third combat, a third exploration and a third sort of platforming gameplay; it's tilted a little bit more towards the combat, just because it's a very strong mechanic and people have fun with it, so I would say it's probably a quarter of platforming and then some problem solving in there too, and a lot more action in terms of road chases and the vehicle sequences and combat.

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