There’s a degree of debate surrounding linear games and their truest definition. For this feature, we’re thinking along the lines of games that have a set beginning, middle, and end, with progress shared somewhat identically between every playthrough. Open worlds, Metroidvanias, back-tracking, games centred on exploration, these don’t tend to fit. There is wiggle room in this ruleset though, as you’ll find out in the feature.

The Last of Us Part II

We speculated on our 2023 linear games list that in terms of gameplay experience The Last of Us Part II is probably better than Part I, so it’d be remiss to exclude Naughty Dog’s masterful sequel to their much-loved (and much-hated) apocalyptic adventure series. Ellie’s a litter older although still hot-headed, plus there’re more characters, denser locations, and a gut-wrenching, if controversial, story which will stir emotion whether you agree with the narrative decisions Naughty Dog made.

]]> 605160 https://gamingbolt.com/10-amazing-games-that-had-next-to-no-boss-fights Tue, 19 Nov 2024 11:30:06 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=586523 Most games nowadays – games with combat especially – feature some sort of boss fight. A brute force test of player skill, a robust assessment of upgrades and augmentations, a cat-and-mouse encounter against an overpowered foe. However, not all combat-centric games rely on this trope. There are tons of great games out there that had next to no boss fights; distinct, memorable, narratively significant encounters, sure, but not something that can be called a true brute force test.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

There isn’t a heap of enemy variety in Nathan Drake’s first outing in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Mercs and pirate-types aside, the monster-like infected Descendants at least provide a terrifying alternative when they first arrive. Their persistence does start to wain though, but still, the game excels as a piece of cinematic storytelling more than anything, and the Descendants provide a firm narrative backbone to support ultimate final boss Atoq Navarro’s stance that the pathogen which formed the Descendants is far more valuable than any golden treasure. Drake and Navarro’s showdown is more a stand-off than battle; Drake waits for him to reload, edges closer in three movements, a brief bit of hand-to-hand, QTE, done.

Far Cry 2

Yet another excellent game that doesn’t really have a boss battle. It has enemies, of course, some weaker, some stronger, but in a genre where there are at least one or two boss fights, Far Cry 2 stands alone. The assassination of the game’s faction bosses and old lieutenants is rudimentary, with primary antagonist The Jackal – the arms dealer whom your mercenary was originally hired to kill – serving more as a narrative think-piece as the story goes on. He’s someone believed to be bad by profiting from death, but that’s exactly what you do in order to get close to him. A final showdown wouldn’t make sense in this context.

Prey (2017)

Prey (2017) has no boss fights whatsoever. Sure, the substantially dangerous form of Typhon the Nightmare perpetually antagonises the player throughout the game but the fact killing it is optional, either slay or evade, means it can’t be considered a true boss fight. It’ll respawn anyway, whatever you do. The most humungous of all Typhon, the Apex, doesn’t need to be fought in the traditional sense either. There are two ways to kill it: one, self-destruct Talos I, and two, detonate the Coral to destroy the Apex without damaging Talos I. Even central antagonist Walther Dahl doesn’t need to be killed, with distinct outcomes depending on whether you choose to kill or stun him.

Deus Ex

In Deus Ex, you will engage enemies on the elite side of difficulty but the game’s usual fayre of tactical, first-person combat involving stealth, cover, and hit-and-run strategy is consistent with regular hordes of enemies as it is the elite. A principal idea – and a relatively ground-breaking one for the time – in Deus Ex is for the player to spend their time developing their stealth skills alongside augmenting their character’s nano-tech. It’s a system seen today in games like Cyberpunk 2077, a multi-directional upgrade tree that can tune player-characters towards damage absorbing human tanks, weapons specialists, or hacking and lock picking experts. There just aren’t any major bosses with which to test your builds and skills, but Deus Ex still shines as a bright forbearer for dystopian RPGs to this day regardless.

The Last of Us

Another Naughty Dog entry on this rundown. Plainly, the studio just isn’t that fond of boss battles, and this is true of their zombie-ravaged post-apocalyptic survive-a-thon series (the horrifying Rat King from The Last of Us 2 aside). Joel and Ellie’s first outing sees the pair face-off in arena-type locales against overpowered enemies – the bloaters in the school gymnasium and the creepy hotel basement spring to mind – but these are strong, recurring enemies consistent with the timeframe in which the host has been infected, according to The Last of Us lore. The one possible exception in is Ellie’s battle with David inside the burning restaurant. It’s a one-on-one battle of wits, but Ellie at the time doesn’t have any of her inventory so it can be argued this encounter is not a true boss fight.

Max Payne 2

Remedy Entertainment’s bullet-time third-person shooter started out with numerous boss fights; mobsters, in the first Max Payne, who could withstand heaps of punishment. Max Payne’s second entry largely did away with this formula. Leader of the Squeaky Cleaning Company Kaufman was a tougher than usual foe, but still didn’t take too many bullets before going down. The game’s final battle against Vladimir Lem plays out more like a puzzle encounter than a one-on-one fight of brute force. Max must shoot the legs of the scaffolding Vlad is standing on then take out the support of the spire above him before being able to target him directly. The final phase is akin to a boss fight, to be fair, but it’s barely a test.

Red Dead Redemption

Like Naughty Dog, Rockstar are a studio which by-and-large eschew boss battles in their open world games. Red Dead Redemption is no different; there are no major boss fights to speak of. Central antagonists Bill Williamson, Javier Escuella, and Dutch van der Linde whom John Marston is forced into hunting down across the vast Wild West don’t have final encounters resembling boss fights. The only encounter close to a boss fight is Jack Marston’s duel with Bureau of Investigation ringleader Edgar Ross, but this is just a duel – a dishonourable one for Ross – but a commonplace duel all the same. This encounter only has notoriety for the gravitas of revenge attuned to it by John’s son Jack.

Grand Theft Auto IV

The only conceivable boss fight in Grand Theft Auto history is the showdown with Big Smoke in GTA: San Andreas. All other fights, even against central antagonists, are gunfights or chases against narratively significant adversaries, but they’re not stronger than regular enemies. Niko’s final showdown and execution of Pegorino, accessible via the revenge ending option, is a thrilling chase sequence rather than one-on-one boss fight. Prior to this, Niko’s final encounter with major tormentor Dimitri Rascalov involves sneaking through the decks and cargo holds of the Platypus, with a brief cutscene emerging once Niko has wiped out all Rascalov’s goons.

Watch_Dogs 2

Another game with next to no boss-like encounters in this rundown, this hacktivism sequel takes a more nuanced approach to dealing with its antagonists. Case in point, Mark Thruss’s comeuppance comes when player-character Marcus Holloway downloads and releases evidence of vote rigging before election day. Blume Corporation CTO and chief antagonist Dusan Nemec’s downfall comes after Marcus infiltrates Blume HQ and steals data corroborating DedSec’s accusation of Nemec’s wrongdoing. Henceforth he rots in jail forever.

Alien: Isolation

Yeah, you’re probably thinking that Alien: Isolation is a game with a boss encounter; the persistently stalking Xenomorph is surely the boss, right? Well, yeah, maybe. However, there’s no distinct boss battle or one-on-one fighting section to speak of. The Xenomorph, truth be told, is so overpowered, it’s an unkillable nemesis, so dangerous in fact its more prudent to run and hide than face it head on. You’ll only lose.

Speaking on a recent episode of the XboxEra podcast, XboxEra co-founders Nick Baker and John Clarke claimed that a ground-up remake of the first Uncharted title, 2007’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, is in the works for PS5. Though the project isn’t guaranteed to happen, Baker said that “it is, at the very least, being very strongly considered.”

Baker and Clarke also stated that they received information on the remake independently, and that they also saw “evidence” that points to its veracity. Baker went on to add that the information in question “doesn’t indicate” that the remake is being developed by series developer Naughty Dog or Bluepoint Games (who developed 2015’s Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection), but who exactly is developing it is unknown.

Interestingly enough, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann said last year that the studio was “done” with Uncharted, though not long afterward, Naughty Dog stated that it was recruiting to “build future teams for not only new titles but for the legacy of Uncharted.”

Leaks have claimed that a new Uncharted game is being developed by a new studio. It’s been widely speculated that the studio in question is the one that was established in San Diego in partnership with PlayStation Studios Visual Arts. Job listings in 2022 revealed that the studio was “co-developing an exciting new project with Naughty Dog in a beloved franchise.”

GoldenEye 007 – Protect Natalya

Escort missions are always a highway to misery but GoldenEye 007 made escorting Natalya resemble Bond’s legendary car roll in Casino Royale. First, if you get too far ahead – like in the Jungle – some random enemies might pick her off. She’s constantly in the line of your fire, which makes for accidental kills more often than you’d think. The least Rare could have done was make Natalya somewhat durable but alas, it didn’t.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is due out in a couple of months; the game looks pretty damn neat, and it also looks like it will be Nathan Drake’s most far flung and wide ranging adventure yet. But how did this adventure come about? We know that Drake’s Fortune was tropical jungles, Among Thieves were the icy Himalayas, and Drake’s Deception was sandy deserts- A Thief’s End appears to be not any one such environment, but a whole lot of them.

How did Naughty Dog visualize Drake’s journey so far? We, of course, don’t know their full creative development process. But, thanks to a new image shared on Naughty Dog’s Instagram account, we do at least have some extremely early concept art that was drawn up for the series. It actually looks different from anything that has been shown to us so far- where Uncharted always takes place in the great outdoors, this seems to be more in what appear to be sewers.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a level like this in one of the Uncharted games.

Early concept of our hero & an environment before he turned into Nathan Drake & Project Big turned into Uncharted • #uncharted #naughtydog #nathandrake #tbt #throwbackthursday

A photo posted by Naughty Dog (@naughty_dog_inc) on Feb 25, 2016 at 5:08pm PST

The question, as always, remains: How heavily revamped have the visuals been? We’ve been keeping track of Bluepoint’s remastering work for Uncharted and Uncharted 2 over the past few months but we were very curious to see how each game would pan out on release.

Let’s start with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Given its PS3 roots, it couldn’t have been easy for Bluepoint Games to remaster the game. Drake’s Fortune is renowned for Naughty Dog’s introduction of new development tools and pipelines, especially in layering different facial expressions and animations together to achieve the desired results. It’s also known for being a rushed title on what was a complicated GPU-CPU architecture at the time. At this point, Bluepoint already has an immense task ahead of it to hit 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second.

Head to head comparison between PS4 and PS3 versions of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video quality.

Nonetheless, that’s exactly what they’ve done. The frame rate is nearly locked at 60 frames per second with only a few frame drops noticed. Oddly enough, these occur when transitioning from gameplay to cut scenes and vice versa. Regardless, whether you’re involved in a high speed shoot-out or exploring the jungle, the frame rate stays solid at 60 frames per second during gameplay. Bluepoint has also added ambient occlusion to go with its shader improvements. Combined with anisotropic filtering, the image quality definitely comes across as sharper and more appealing than before.

Bluepoint has also worked to significantly improve on the character models for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and it feels like a big departure from the “waxen” look of the PS3’s models. Not only does Drake’s face and hair resemble his model from Uncharted 3, which many will prefer, but it ends up fitting the series’ realistic tone overall. At the time, Naughty Dog was coming off of Jak & Daxter so it must have taken some time to acclimatize to a more realistic style (hence the slight cartoonishness of the PS3 version’s models) but they’ve come a long way since then. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, compare Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune on the PS3 to Uncharted 4’s characters and you’ll see what we mean.

The lighting engine has been significantly revamped, which changes the tone of scenes quite noticeably. Shadows are now properly cast on water surfaces with ripples and waves, and the wave effects themselves have been updated. Some areas also include better foliage and volumetric effects, though this doesn’t extend to the entire game. Many textures have been reworked along with skin shaders and we even spotted sub-surface scattering on characters’ skin at places. Even Drake’s clothing textures have been reworked. The overall effect is subtle and should be viewed side by side with the PS3 version to properly appreciate. Interestingly, along with reworking ground geometry to feature more details, there are places where the depth of field has been removed completely. Perhaps this is to ensure more solid performance but it’s understandable all the same.

Though it’s changes are very subtle, Bluepoint Games has an incredible job remastering the near-decade old game while maintaining excellent performance throughout.

Head to head comparison between PS4 and PS3 versions of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video quality.

In 2009, Naughty Dog released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Having had the time to master the PS3’s architecture, the developer introduced Naughty Engine 2.0. This built on the engine used in Drake’s Fortune while taking nearly 100 percent advantage of the PS3’s CELL SPUs. As a result, the visuals improved massively over the first Uncharted, incorporating better animations, real-time environments and excellent coordination with Havok Physics. To say that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has been hailed as one of the greatest games of all time is an understatement.

On the PlayStation 4, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves runs at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second, once again only witnessing drops when transitioning from cut scenes to gameplay and vice versa. AF 8x has been implrmeneted, leading to some beautiful texture quality, and the enhanced DoF effect looks much better in 1080p. As noted before, the alpha and volumetric effects have been improved which means better weather effects like snow and more realistic explosions. Smoke and debris have also been improved, further adding to the game’s cinematic feel. Draw distances are also better and the revamped lighting engine helps the colours pop all the more. Several assets in Uncharted 2 have been either reworked or replaced, resulting in a better looking game like in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Once again, subsurface scattering has been observed along with improved skin shaders, better texture filtering and increased details. Cloth shaders and hair shaders have also been improved and we noticed improvements to the material based filtering as well. LOD is balanced pretty well and hence, there’s a low loss of details. Sadly, shadow dithering is still an issue but we’ve pretty much come to expect that in many games these days.

Interestingly, one particular omission is the velocity based motion blur that was present in the PS3 version. The effect has been completely removed in the pre-rendered cut scenes and we actually miss it. It’s especially odd when you consider that motion blur in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was done on the GPU while Uncharted 2 offloaded this to the CELL’s SPU units. Given the immense power and easy accommodation of the PS4’s GPGPU, its removal is quite the surprise.

Overall, whether you played it in 2009 or not, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an awesome remaster and ably stands on its own terms in 2015.

Head to head comparison between PS4 and PS3 versions of Uncharted 2: Drake’s Deception. Select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video quality.

In 2011, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception released and was the equivalent of a finely aged wine in a prettier bottle. Though it wasn’t as revolutionary as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in terms of gameplay or visuals, it was still one of the best third person shooters and action titles ever made. At this point, Naughty Dog had pretty much capped out the utilization of the PS3 hardware, optimizing its engine to extract 100 percent of the console’s power. It makes for an interesting comparison with the PS4 remaster.

The focus in the PS3 version was on improving the action on screen, the material based rendering in the dynamic sand, fire and water effects (perfectly exemplified in the game’s breathtaking ship level) and also incorporating more realistic animations and textures. On a more subjective note, the hair shaders have been completely revamped and we honestly appreciated the original look better. Again, this is a purely subjective opinion and doesn’t affect the visual quality at all.

When comparing the original PS3 game to the PS4 remaster, we noticed subtle changes like the addition of DoF in different places (which is appreciated). Skin scales look crisper, blood has that extra bit of fluidity and the anisotropic filtering is better than the original. Some aspects like the dirt on Sully’s face look cleaner and boast more detail. When observing some of the walls in the original, they didn’t have very crisp looking cracks while the remaster actually has water seeping out of said cracks. It’s little touches like this which add to the overall experience.

Details in the distance have been improved and the 1080p resolution goes a long way towards reducing compression artefacts, thus making nearby objects look crisper and cleaner. The 60 FPS frame rate makes watching the game, especially during the desert section, an absolute treat and we appreciated how the enhanced fire effects make the escape sequences look better.

It should be noted that a custom AA solution is in place across all three remasters and hence takes care of per pixel aliasing. Shadow dithering is an issue in some places despite the implementation of ambient occlusion. AF x8 is also present and does a great deal of justice to all the texture detail.

Though Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is perhaps the best example of the PS3 being pushed to its absolute limit, the remastered version manages to look even better. As a whole, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection features three classic titles which have had their visuals improved significantly while implementing a solid 60 FPS frame rate and 1080p resolution. Even if you’ve experienced all of these games several times over, The Nathan Drake Collection is a great incentive to go back and relive the magic once again.

After comparing footage from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves on the PS3 and PS4, we noted a variety of improvements. Though environmental deformation wasn’t quite up to snuff, we noted better particle and alpha effects (particularly in transparency). Texture details, from metallic sheen to cracked pillars and clothing on characters, looked great in 1080p resolution. We detected some frame rate drops but for the most part, Bluepoint seemed close to cracking the constant 60 FPS puzzle.

Now, footage for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – the game that started it all – has become available, showcasing the sequence where Elena busts Drake out before transitioning to a high speed chase in the jungle. It should be noted that Uncharted 2 was already leaps and bounds above its predecessor when it came to graphics and animation. This is because the first Uncharted marked Naughty Dog’s first foray into PS3 development, which is no easy feat when you consider the challenges the Cell processor presented. Naughty Engine 1.0 still benefitted from the console’s GPU to employ pixel shaders, real-time shadows, advanced water simulation and more while animation blending was created to pile various realistic expressions and animations into the experience. Even when reviewing the PS3 footage all these years later, the animations in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune were clearly ahead of their time. If anything, it feels even more fluid when viewed in 1080p resolution and 60 FPS.

Comparing the PS3 and PS4 footage side by side, it’s amazing just how revamped the textures have become. Drake’s hair looks more like actual hair while various environmental details, like moss growing on the floors, crumbling bricks, rusted metal bars and foliage look better. The cloth textures alone for all the characters are better on closer observation and thanks to the lighting system, character models themselves move and blend with the environment more naturally than before. Edges are smooth overall with a custom post-process anti-aliasing in play.

The lighting is no longer a heavy yellow shade illuminating characters and settings. In some scenes, like the chase through the tunnels, the sun rays and dust particles – which reacted dynamically to the environment – melded together while also illuminating the nearby vegetation. Light sources themselves cast multiple shadows in environments and it was interesting how it worked differently for indoor settings. In the PS3 version, the single torch functioned as more of a hard light source. In the PS4 version, the light emitted from the torch is less harsh, resulting in shadows blending with characters’ features and clothing in a more nuanced fashion.

I honestly didn’t find the difference in overall texture quality and lighting for Uncharted 2 on the PS3 and PS4 to be as significant as Uncharted across both console generations. It isn’t limited to texture quality either – while the original ran at a locked 30 FPS frame rate with very noticeable screen tearing in action-heavy sequences, the PS4 version runs at a smooth 60 frames per second for the most part with no screen-tearing. One could say there was greater room for improvement than in the sequel but its changes like this that really help bring Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in line with the rest of the trilogy. The 1080p resolution further helps in delivering all that crisp detail.

Then again, there are some drawbacks. As with Uncharted 2, the environmental deformation didn’t look like anything “next generation”. While it is improved over the PS3 version, it doesn’t really stand out all that much, even as particle and alpha effects like explosions and fire come across better than before. The structure of environments on the PS4 version hasn’t been messed about with either and they’re still very similar to the PS3 version.

At the end of the day though, Bluepoint Games continues to refine its work on the Nathan Drake Collection. While Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune may run at a rock steady frame rate, Uncharted 2 and 3 may still be optimized up until launch day (not that Uncharted 2 was all that far off anyway). We still haven’t had a look at Drake’s Deception on the PS4 so there’s still more to anticipate in the coming weeks. If the collection thus far has proven anything, it’s that the developer is retaining the look and feel of the original games while significantly updating them for the PS4 (with a 60 FPS frame rate in mind, of course). Even if Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection doesn’t end up running at a locked 60 FPS, the work that Bluepoint has put in to get it that close is an achievement in itself.

As with Uncharted 2, it’s hard to fathom going back to Uncharted at 30 FPS after this collection. It also makes one wonder how Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will fare in that regard, seeing as its single-player campaign is capped at 30 FPS and 1080p resolution. Regardless, with Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection releasing on October 7th in Europe and October 9th in North America, this journey to Drake’s debut on the PS4 has seen nothing short of high quality.

Note: This is a work in progress analysis based on the recent footage released by Sony.

With the impending release of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection exclusively on the PS4 Naughty Dog is releasing a number of videos showing what the last generation games are going to look like on the PS4. There are a number of different videos that have been released over the last couple of months and each one has focused on a different title that will be included in the larger package. This new video shows off what the much-beloved game Drakes Fortune is going to look like on the current generation console.

Not only has this new video hit the web, which you can watch below, but the Naughty Dog team is streaming a number of sessions playing this upcoming title. You’ll be able to get a pretty good look at the game in this new video which lasts more than 11 minutes. Then you’ll be able to see even more of the action by heading over to Twitch in order to see the favorite parts of the game by the people who actually put it together.

As is always the case, you’ll want to take how they are playing it with a grain of salt, considering that they’re the ones who actually made the game what it is today and they’re working on making it even better for the Playstation 4. The company is also planning future livestreams. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is set to release on October 7, 2015.

Uncharted has become Sony’s flagship franchise, Nathan Drake providing gamers a likeable face to associate with PlayStation, and epitomizing the kind of experiences that PlayStation games are about. Its sales reflect this, too- on the heels of the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection announcement earlier today, Sony and Naughty Dog announced that sales of the franchise, excluding Vita’s Golden Abyss, had hit 21 million units worldwide. That’s 7 million units a game.

No doubt, those are great sales, and the kind that Sony is hoping to replicate with the upcoming Uncharted 4 (which is due to hit before March 31 next year). It also explains why the Uncharted Collection has been made- for fans of the adventures, it’s a great way to relive all of them on PS4. For newcomers to the PlayStation brand, it’s a great way to get caught up.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection will be due out in October for the PS4. If you buy it, you will also get exclusive access to the beta for Uncharted 4 later this year. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more.

Sony will be releasing its film adaptation of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted on June 10th 2016 according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter. Shooting will begin in early 2015 but it seems Sony has plans to have the movie replace the Amazing Spider-Man 3 in that spot, the latter having been pushed back to 2018.

Doug Belgrad, president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, stated that, “June 10 is a great date for Uncharted. It’s just the right place for this exciting action-adventure film.”

The Uncharted film is directed by Seth Gordon who has created such critically acclaimed masterpieces as Horrible Bosses, Four Holiday seasons and even several TV episodes for shows like Modern Family, Community, The Goldbergs and much more. It will be produced by Arad/Atlas Entertainment and written by David Guggenheim who worked on Safe House and Stolen. They’ve really got the top guys for the job.

What are your thoughts on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in 2016? Let us know in the comments.