Nathan Drake may be your traditional, charming rogue now, but originally, he was meant to be more like Jackass star Johnny Knoxville, according to The Verge. Originally, Nathan Drake was supposed to be more like a character from a Dreamworks or Pixar animation movie – possibly a holdover from Naughty Dog’s PS1 and PS2 days, back when they were still making stylized games – but that was changed soon to the Drake we know and love today.

“When Nolan came in, it was fairly clear that he was going to be the one,” Uncharted 4 writer Josh Scherr told the site. “He had that right kind of devil may care feel to his voice, but he could also get serious when he needed to. And most importantly, as we discovered, is that the guy was hilarious.”

As it turned out, North’s performance would heavily influence the new look that Naughty Dog designed for Drake. And personally, while yes, one may argue that Drake as he is now is a bit generic, I don’t think I’d want it any more at this point. Generic or no, he is iconic.

The Lead character artist for Uncharted 4: A Theif’s End, Frank Tzengi, recently said that their model for Drake was on another level, “This character can easily be a digital double in a film. Based on the quality, the detail, the blend shape, the colour, everything that we put on the character this is basically a film character to me. So to me, videos games are getting really close to film quality, and this is exactly what I wanted to do.”

Well people are backing this claim up by posting an image of a colour shifted rendering of Drake in an attempt to make him look that little bit more real. Now don’t get me wrong, the character model looks fantastic and exceptionally realistic, it really does, but the photo realistic claim doesn’t quite hold water.

The lighting is just off enough to see him look like a render, this is likely due to the colour shifting process, shadows specifically carry a more greenish hue than they should. It’s made worse by the decidedly hard edges of the model. Either way, no matter how you slice it, that is one amazing looking character.

For the sake of comparison when it comes to making an image more realistic, you’re better adjusting contrast and brightness levels, as was demonstrated with the Realistic PT gameplay screengrab, which you can see below.

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The PlayStation Experience Event brought together the developers of Naughty Dog’s upcoming game, Uncharted 4, for a discussion about some of the games features and general game design. With Uncharted 4 predicted to be a massive blockbuster hit, fans were anxious for any information made available at all.

The developers revealed that by making use of the power in the PlayStation 4 they are able to give Nathan Drake, the game’s hero and protagonist, a total of 800 facial animations. This is in stark contrast with the PlayStation 3 games which currently only has 120 facial animations.

A bizarre boast that is without a doubt the first time I’ve ever heard of something so superfluous in a game is that Drakes chest hair is actually influenced by the wind. I’m honestly not sure if that’s a brilliant attention to detail or a waste of in game resources.

They also revealed that a “considerable amount of time” has passed since Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception, thus explaining Nathan and the “support cast” look noticeably older.

Tomb Raider didn’t have it any better, as writer Rhianna Pratchett for the new reboot spoke about not only the problems facing female protagonists in games but diverse characters as well.

Speaking to Kill Screen, she stated that, “You’ve got a situation where female characters do get scrutinized more than male characters do, and in some ways can be seen as holding a banner up for female characters.

“A lot gets heaped on their shoulders. Lara Croft gets a lot more scrutiny than Nathan Drake does, as a female. Nobody talks about how well Nathan Drake is representing men, or male characters in games.”

“Developers themselves are much more diverse than the characters. Whenever anybody talks about a need for more female protagonists I say: ‘There’s a need for more female protagonists, but there’s a need for characters of different ethnicities, ages, sexual orientation, ability, et cetera.’ We are very narrow when it comes to our characters.”

In fact, she wanted to work to make Lara more womanly in Tomb Raider; maybe even make her gay and explore the different complexities of gender and sexuality. Games like Mass Effect have tried, for a while, but the industry is still yet to fully embrace the notion.

“There’s just so much to be explored, if we could just be a little bit braver about our characters. Because gamers can take it, I think,” says Pratchett.

Thanks to IGN for the info.