Last year’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, sequel to the breakthrough 2007 PS3 exclusive Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, took the adventure genre to a whole new level. Featuring a compelling storyline, slickly directed cutscenes, wonderful graphics, and great over the shoulder gunplay, the Naughty Dog developed title went on to become one of the highest rated titles of all time on Metacritic, and that is no mean feat.
Naturally, any developer creating an adventure title now feels the pressure having increased, since the ane has been upped. Ninja Theory is one such developer. Co-founder Tameem Antoniades, involved in production of Enslaved, Ninja Theory’s next, which seems to be treading the same ground Uncharted 2 did last year, seems to be aware of this, and wants to stop the unfavourable comparisions as soon as possible.
“It’s never good to be compared with something that’s already the pinnacle of its genre,” blurted Antoniades at Develop last week. “It makes you slightly uneasy.”
“I’m okay with people comparing it to Uncharted 2 because it’s in the same genre. But, bloody hell, that’s a lot to live up to.”
In spite of the heavy praise he’s showered on the game, Antoniades concedes that cinematic thrillers like Heavy Rain and Uncharted have a lot of work to do before they can be considered perfect, though.
“I’m not going to single out Uncharted 2, but the best games out there in storytelling still fall short of the nuances of films,” he said.
“When we’re doing Enslaved and the story and the character and everything we’re not looking at other games, we’re looking at movies and achieving that level of cinematic performance.
“We’ve got a good shot at delivering a strong story where the talent behind it actually matters,” he added.
He isn’t kidding about the talent. Ninja Theory has brought under its fold big name stalwarts like Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine) to co-write the game, and rubber-faced actor Andy Serkis (Gollum, King Kong, Ian Dury) to star in and direct motion-capture.
Enslaved releases on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this October. Watch out for our review.