I was lucky enough to be invited to a preview event which PlayStation Australia was hosting to preview a bit of Uncharted 4’s single player campaign. The game from what I saw has a lot of new things to report in terms of its gameplay, while the graphics look to be much improved from what I saw during my preview time with the game.
The two big things that stood out to me from my time with the game yesterday, which was spent in Chapter 10 of the game, was that there is a large emphasis on a world that is a lot more open than in previous games. A player is now able to explore a lot more than they ever could before in an Uncharted game. Secondly, Nathan Drake now has a lot of new stealth abilities and also allies that will help him out when he gets into trouble as well.
While I don’t have a video of my own time with the game, PlayStation Australia did send me this video which is below of the level I played in. The first section of the video has Drake driving around in a vehicle with his buddies, this section shows the open world side of things. While the second part shows an encounter with some enemies where you can see the stealth side of the game (as well as a bit of action as well).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYwZgKDcqUA
With Uncharted 4’s larger levels, I felt when playing it at first that everything was so much bigger than before.This will be great for those who like to explore different game environments and for those who love to go out and find treasures in the game too. For those who are looking to just complete the mission objectives though, it will now take a bit longer to reach certain areas as you have to now navigate through the map and find your own way. It’s no longer a clear and linear path, there are different ways to go about things and obstacles along the way which will stop Drake for a bit and make the player think for a moment about what to do.
Chapter 10 features a vehicle you are able to drive around in, which is a first for the series as you’ve never been able to do this before (unless you count the jet-ski in Uncharted 1). I found the vehicles handling to be good enough for what I needed to do and it was very easy to control and drive throughout the level. The vehicle is able to be entered or exited at any time during the level as well, should you wish to get out and explore what is around you. It also has a winch, which I used at a certain point to get the vehicle up a steep/muddy hill by attaching it to a tree. The vehicle is helpful as it helps you get through what is a very large level very quickly.
The game also seems to have a lot of stealth mechanics thrown into it now which makes for more diverse gameplay. It’s nice to have the option now to either stealth through certain parts in the game or to just go in and shoot everyone you see. In the level that I was in, Drake can go into a stealth mode when he moves in amongst the grass to sneak up or hide from enemies. Additionally you can also mark enemies that you see while in stealth mode so that you don’t lose track of where they are when you are moving around. I was told that on the harder difficulties, the ability to mark the enemies is removed to make things more difficult.
Enemies have certain states in stealth mode to indicate how alert they are to what you are doing. White meant that they were alert but don’t know what’s going on, yellow I believe was when they can see you and red was that they definitely see you and are ready to attack. While I did not try it myself, I believe that all enemies can be reset back to the patrol mode from any state in stealth mode after enough time has gone by if they saw you and can’t find you (however I’m not 100% sure of this).
What’s also great to see in this game is that your allies seem to be more involved when it comes to helping you during the action scenes. I found it was similar to how Ellie would help Joel out in The Last Of Us. I do really love this feature and I’m looking forward to see how well this is implemented in the full game. I couldn’t really grasp how good the allies were from my time, but I did see them doing things during the action sequence, but I left thinking it was a good new feature.
In terms of the rest of the aspects of the game. The graphics look like they’ve improved a lot compared to the previous titles which were already fairly decent. This area of the game featured Madagascar which looked stunning at certain points and is sure to impress those who like to look around at the vista’s in a game. Nathan Drake’s character model is a lot more detailed in this game which is great to see and not just Drake, but all characters look to have aged since the last game, indicating that they’re a lot older now. It’s got the same iconic music as well as the odd treasure here and there to find.
Uncharted 4 is basically like playing the other games in the series, but with improved graphics, larger levels, better stealth mechanics and a level where you can drive around in and these are all great things. I loved my short time with the game and if I didn’t have to stop after my preview session I would probably still be playing right now. I’m very much looking forward to playing this game and finding out what the full experience is like as well as what else goes on in the single player campaign.
I also had some time with the mulitplayer section of this game a few months ago, you can see my thoughts on that right here.