Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Interview

Angus has a quick chat with Arne Meyer about Uncharted 2

Although Meyer has only been with naughty Dog for around 18 months, he has had over 10 years in the gaming industry helping to launch two Xbox consoles before working with Vivendi Games. His last year and a half with Naughty Dog has seen him onboard for the entire development of Uncharted 2 and we fired some questions at him in the hot German sunshine at GamesCom 2009.

NZG: Obviously the most striking difference we can see in Uncharted 2 is the change in scenary from jungle environments to an urban setting. From a developer's point of view how did this affect the process and how does this change the elements of gameplay for the user?

Meyer: Well although the urban settings that you've seen are there, we are putting together a lot of other different environments as well. Including a Turkish Museum, swamp-lands, the urban city too but then right through to a mountain-side village and then the actual mountains and caves in the Himalayas as well. So the biggest challenge was you've got this great set of environments and climates to deal with and how do you recreate it all so that it is faithful and believable. And one of the things we had to deal with was, you're out in the mountains and now you're walking around in snow so how do we get this to look realistic. So the settings have become a lot more diverse this time around.

NZG: While we're on the topic of the first Uncharted – many people were surprised by the massive change in the tone of the game towards the second half. Are there plans to include any supernatural themes in the sequel?

Meyer: Everything that we do we take a certain degree of fiction to the story and with the genre we've got there is always that level of the supernatural or the mysticism that lies beneath it. The whole storyline that we have in the game is based around this unknown period in Marco Polo's life and so already right there we are taking a lot of liberties with what is real. So whatever we do we want to make sure it's grounded in realism, but that we're also adding this sort of... unknown aspect to what's going on around you.

NZG: In terms of poor old Drake (and the events at the end of the last game), what can we see unfolding around him in the sequel? Is it going to be a lot darker this time around?

Meyer: Well what you're getting from the events of the end of the previous Uncharted, Nathan Drake certainly is down on his luck. He's beaten up and he's returned to this underworld of thieves and smugglers and everyone around him isn't trustworthy and there are a lot of shady characters. So we're starting off [the sequel] with him still in this 'down in the dumps' situation but we're doing that because we really want to explore his character and his personality a lot deeper and it's really seeing someone at their most trying and this sort of situation can really expose the nature of who Drake is. But also it's looking at how the relationships are like with either lovers or friends, colleagues or their antagonists so by placing him in this dark setting we were able to bring in a lot of other cast members who Drake can play off on and explore different aspects of his personality. Like Chloe Frazer, she's like his equal but doesn't have the same level of ethics that Drake does so there might be some conflict there...

NZG: Like the love interest?

Meyer: ...(smiles) well yes, Chloe is sort of like his love interest with what we've introduced.

NZG: Let's talk about the close-quarter combat – what changes have been made to the melee attacks in Uncharted 2?

Meyer: Sure – you see we really wanted to improve Nathan Drake's move set and how you would approach the melee combat. So for a lot of it, what you are seeing there is now contextural so if you're running towards an enemy the way Nathan attacks them will be different to if you were walking or standing next to them. Also the enemies have an AI to them that gives them a level of awareness as well so you need to be careful if you want to sneak up on them. And all of these stealth moves are contextual as well meaning you might throw them over your shoulder, grab him via the neck or pull them down off from off a ledge. You can kick them off a ledge as well. That's just one way we've expanded it but also enemies can counter your attacks now. So you'll be in the middle of a melee combo and some of the more challenging enemies will counter your blows and come back at you with their own punches – or put you in an arm-lock. But you will have a window to counter their counter attacks too making the whole process a bit more interesting than just pressing buttons wildly.

NZG: The multiplayer is definitely a big step in a new direction for the series too. But for a game that started as purely a story-driven action adventure – how was the multiplayer development treated?

Meyer: It was very interesting, when we approached the multiplayer aspects – and just like everything development process we make – we wanted to make sure we did it right. So we actually bought in a lot of multiplayer game designers specifically to tune those aspects. But that's not to say there weren't any shared resources because as the multiplayer was starting to come together, both technology and gameplay design wise, we found that they actually benefited each other. Because the one thing you get from multiplayer is you get certain scenarios happening over and over and over again and you get a feel for what repetitive aspects may need refinement or what elements of combat could change. So we found that working on the multiplayer actually improved the single-player game and also vice-versa because we're looking at the multiplayer and thinking what can we do to improve this and make it unique.

NZG: The BETA of the multiplayer gave everyone a taste of the online madness, what else can be expected in the final release?

Meyer: There definitely will be more modes and just recently at ComicCon we announced a new co-op mode that is called Gold Rush which again is saying there are different ways we can provide a co-op experience. Gold Rush has 2 – 3 people in a co-operative twist on our version of Capture the Flag called Plunder where they are taking out waves of AI enemies and working for a collective goal. But we also have other modes in the works too so we're not just stopping at a couple. Same goes for our competitive modes too – it won't just be deathmatch and team deathmatch, there will be more announced soon.



NZG: Obviously the reason for the BETA was for public feedback – how did this go?

Meyer: Yeah... well obviously we liked the praise [grins]... but we took the constructive criticism onboard as well and that was the real reason we put it out there... not only to test the integrity of it all but just to see what people really thought about it. We had a specific forum set up for comments on the BETA, people obviously talked aout it on other forums as well and we listened to it all. We actually played it officially (as the Naughty Dog team) and un-officially as just ourselves with people around the world too just to see what strategies people were using and what they were exploiting in the game. And they would actually approach us via this and tell us what they thought and what they liked and didn't like either via messages or voice chat. It was well worth while.

NZG: I think that's our time up, but thanks for taking the time out for having a quick chat with NZGamer. All the best for the release, we look forward to seeing the final product!

Meyer: Thanks, it's not too far away now!

NZGamer.com would like thank Activision, Capcom, Microsoft NZ, SCENZ, SEGA, THQ and Ubisoft for making this trip possible.

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