When people look back on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, it won't just represent some big PlayStation 4 exclusive, or a great action-adventure game — instead, Uncharted 4 represents the end of an era for one of gaming's biggest developers.
Naughty Dog has always been synonymous with the PlayStation brand, but it wasn't until Uncharted: Drake's Fortune that the developer became a household name. Somehow, with a young team and new hardware, Naughty Dog created a blockbuster franchise overnight. As the series went on, the story of Nathan Drake and his merry band of adventurers only got bigger and bigger — but gamers knew that the series couldn't go on forever.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End marks the end of the series ... for Naughty Dog, at least. While there are plenty of rumors as to what the studio will be working on next, Naughty Dog has made it clear that Uncharted 4 represents the end of the arc that started way back in 2007.
So, where does the series go from here? The team has previously mentioned that the Uncharted franchise could go on without it — and given just how much money the games pull in, it's easy to assume that Sony will take it up on that offer. With that in mind, we've got a few ideas of where the series could go after its creators have moved on.
SPOILER WARNING:
We'll be discussing the end of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, so if you haven't beaten the game just yet, bookmark this page and come back when you have!
The Obvious Choice: Sam and Sully Take Over
The ending of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End sees Nate and Elena finally settling down and getting ready to start a family (more on that later), and it's clear that Naughty Dog really wanted to drive home the fact that Nate is done adventuring.
Sure, Nate's done adventuring — but his brother clearly isn't.
In the final scene before the epilogue begins, Sam asks Sully about the possibility of working together, to which Sully responds with a few cryptic hints at something that's already in the planning stages. The two walk away together, and while their subsequent adventures are still unknown to the player, the epilogue confirms that they continue working together for some time.
Considering the relationship between Nate and Sully in the first Uncharted, it wouldn't be all that surprising for another studio to tackle something similar in the next game. Not only would the new partnership serve as a great jumping-off point for new fans, but it could help the studio flesh out some of the series' best characters even further.
The only real hindrance is that the ending of a potential Sam-and-Sully game has already been spoiled: no matter what adventures the two go on, the ending of Uncharted 4 confirms that they survive — and knowing what happens to the main characters before the story even starts doesn't really help build dramatic tension.
The Other Obvious Choice: It Runs in the Family
It's safe to say that Naughty Dog has perfected the Uncharted formula. The gunplay, the traversal, the vehicular segments — everything about playing Uncharted 4 has been polished to a mirror sheen.
The big question is: where do you go from there? Do you keep adding in extra gadgets and risk bloating the gameplay, or do you scale things back and risk making the game feel underdeveloped? What about making things realistic, or taking the over-the-top action even further?
Our bet's not on what needs to change, but on how big things will get. Uncharted 4 introduced more open environments, not just for more traversal routes, but also for more exploration in general. Driving around Madagascar and exploring a wealth of caves and hidden alcoves wasn't just fun, it was a way to break up the pace of the otherwise linear story sequences.
A full open-world sandbox may not work for Uncharted, but more recent Tomb Raider games have proven that a hybrid style can definitely work. Scripted, linear sequences eventually spill out into wide-open areas that players could explore at their leisure — or skip entirely and move on to the next main mission. True, there'd need to be some sort of tangible reward for exploring — but considering the fact the Uncharted has always been about exploring, that probably won't be too high a hurdle to clear.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and its predecessors are some of the best action games ever made, and it'll be tough for a new studio to pick up and carry the series forward after Naughty Dog has moved on. That being said, with the right team behind the game, we're confident that Uncharted will live on.
For the time being, however, fans will just have to put up with a fantastic finale: for more on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, make sure to check out our full review.
