Video game development often comes with several sleights-of-hand to ensure gamers are suitably immersed in their environment, be it a shooter, RPG, or anything else. Uncharted‘s health system may just top the lot. That’s because it works in a way pretty much no one would’ve assumed, and it’s blown a few minds, if not Nathan Drake’s.
Taking to Twitter, Naughty Dog developer Jonathan Cooper pulled back the curtain a little to reveal that Nathan Drake never actually gets shot in any Uncharted game until the very final killshot. That’s because the UI that shows the Uncharted ‘health’ system that increasingly draws the color out of Nathan Drake’s surroundings is actually telling you how close Drake is to having his luck run out. Observe:
That’s a mega-swing! Sidenote I learned on joining the team: Drake doesn’t ever take bullet damage. The red UI that shows ‘hits’ is to represent his ‘luck’ running out. Eventually enemies will get a clear shot and kill him if he takes enough near-misses. https://t.co/byzVKYXVe7
If you thought that was a whole pile of baloney, former Uncharted (and Naughty Dog) head honcho Amy Hennig, who has recently given her two cents on the franchise’s future, weighed in with confirmation, as well as elaborating on why the Uncharted health system chimes with the Hollywood aesthetic the studio were aiming for.
True! That was the original intention (to stay more aligned with the spirit and tone of the films we were homaging).