BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS

Batman: Arkham Origins could not have released under worse circumstances, in retrospect. Not only was it developed as a stopgap and sandwiched between two of the series’ biggest games in Arkham City and Arkham Knight, it also came out exclusively for 7th-gen consoles right on the cusp of the beginning of the next console generation. The fact that it was developed by WB Games Montreal while the series’ main devs Rocksteady focused on Arkham Knight did its pre-release hype no favours either, while Warner Bros. themselves have, bafflingly enough, continued to roundly ignore the game in the years that followed. That’s a real shame, too, because with a great story, some of the best boss fights in the series, and the typical strengths in combat and open world traversal that the Arkham games are know for, Arkham Origins did everything series fans wanted it to.

The entire Uncharted series is now playable on the PS4, thanks to the re-release of the PS3 games via the Nathan Drake Collection, as well as Uncharted 4 being a PS4 game. Well, all of it, except for Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Golden Abyss was a PlayStation Vita exclusive Uncharted game that launched all the way back in February 2012. While it did as reasonably well on Vita as you would expect, we haven’t seen much of the game since- even the Nathan Drake Collection omitted it.

So is that game doomed to irrelevance and obscurity by being stuck on the PS Vita? Why has Sony not brought it over to the PS4? After all, it has ported other Vita games over to the PS4 in the past.

Naughty Dog’s Chief of Communication, Arne Meyer, was asked by Finder whether a PS4 port of the game might be possible. According to Meyer, it is possible.

“I think that’s not completely out of the question. I mean it’s not entirely up to us, obviously. I think I was asked this at Eurogamer Expo and Shuhei Yoshida was sitting in the front row and I pitched it off on him and I was like, “you have to go talk to Shu about this,” which is what the case is.

“But it’s definitely not out of the question. I mean anything is possible. I know there hasn’t been talk about that recently, but there’s no reason why it can’t happen either.”

Hopefully it happens- and if it does, hopefully they remove the needless, inane gimmickry that kept Golden Abyss from achieving greatness. We’ll see if it does, though.

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

Even as so many PS Vita games seem to be making the jump to the PS4 – Media Molecule’s charming Tearaway transitioned to the PS4 as Tearaway Unfolded, while Sony Japan’s Gravity Rush is also being remastered for Sony’s console ahead of the launch of the PS4 exclusive sequel – Sony Bend’s Uncharted: Golden Abyss remains conspicuous by its absence. The lack of a PS4 port or remaster for Golden Abyss is even more puzzling when you consider that the recently released Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection would have presented Sony with the prime opportunity to justify a PS4 port of the Vita launch title.

Even though the Nathan Drake Collection did not ultimately include a port of the Vita game, it is not entirely out of the question. Speaking to Finder, Arne Meyer, Community Strategist for Naughty Dog, hinted that a PS4 version for the game might not be entirely out of the question.

“I think that’s not completely out of the question. I mean it’s not entirely up to us, obviously. I think I was asked this at Eurogamer Expo and Shuhei Yoshida was sitting in the front row and I pitched it off on him and I was like, “you have to go talk to Shu about this,” which is what the case is. But it’s definitely not out of the question. I mean anything is possible. I know there hasn’t been talk about that recently, but there’s no reason why it can’t happen either.”

Personally, I would be pretty down for something like this, if only because I really want to play the game without any of the gimmicks that the developers felt compelled to include in it to justify the Vita’s touch screen, camera, gyroscope, and rear touch pad. I have a feeling Golden Abyss would be a better game without any of that.

This year, all three existing numbered Uncharted games are being remastered and brought to the PS4 in one package as Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, in a move that echoes Microsoft’s with Halo last year. That said, while it’s great that the three mainline games will soon be on the PS4 for all to enjoy, Sony missed a prime opportunity to also remaster and bring the fourth Uncharted adventure to the PS4, and have it exposed to a wider audience along the way- Golden Abyss.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss was released on the PlayStation Vita back in 2012 as a launch title, and while it is generally considered to be one of the weakest games in the franchise by all those who played it, it is still an entry in the franchise starring Nathan Drake, and slots into the series timeline rather nicely (it took place before any of the three mainline games). Is that not reason enough to include the game in the Collection?

“We went back and looked at what we were trying to do with the Nathan Drake Collection, we realized that those three games – the trilogy – actually provided a particular narrative arc that led into Uncharted 4. We wanted to keep that as a holistic collection for that reason, and Golden Abyss kind of lives a little bit outside of that,” Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer said at EGX.

I’m really not sure I buy it, frankly- then again, while I have been excited at the prospect of Uncharted looking even better, I have been vocally unhappy with how The Nathan Drake Collection has been handled.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection launches on the PS4 in October.

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 Bend released the excellent Syphon Filter games on the PSP, as well as the great Resistance: Retribution. They followed up on all of this with Uncharted: Golden Abyss, one of the standout launch titles for the PlayStation Vita that remains the system’s highest selling game to this day. They were widely expected to follow up on this success with another PlayStation Vita game, but that never happened. An ex-employee, verified to be former Sony Bend artist Athey Moravetz, spoke on Reddit about why the studio has been missing in action for the last four years.

“It was going to be another Uncharted game but naughty dog (sic) was worried about franchise burnout with so many games coming out so close together, so they nixed it,” she said. “We spent like a whole year dicking around with different ideas and pitches after that before I left the studio. We started and threw away so many demos during that year.

“Sony really wanted another Uncharted from us and tried to convince Naughty Dog to let us do it. They wanted more content for Vita. And we did make an infamous (sic) pitch at one point, too. I think that was the first pitch and demo we made after the uncharted project was canned. The infamous game would have been a vita (sic) title too.

“We did a couple new IP pitches. One was steampunk but that didn’t make it very far. There was a really awesome futuristic sci if one that I really liked. We had an amazing future scifi city and a character that could run around and scale buildings with these jet boots, and it was awesome. We had a lot of assets done for that demo when it was canned. I was really bummed when that one got binned.

“I left the studio about 2 years ago and that was when they were making the switch to Unreal 4 and PS4, instead of Vita. It was a bit of a waste since we’d put so much time and resources into making a vita engine and then only used it on one title. But a couple other first party studios used versions of our engine and we lent them support, so it didn’t totally go to waste,” she said, finishing somberly.

As for the PS4 game? What about this PS4 game? Is it at least something that everyone can get behind and be excited about? Like, for instance, a brand new Syphon Filter? As for that, well, don’t hold your breath. Spoilers follow for the Syphon Filter series.

“Hah. No. Don’t hold your breath on that one. Source: worked at Sony Bend for 8 yrs,” she said, shooting down any hopes of that game, before elaborating.

“John Garvin got burned out on Syphon Filter. He wanted to make something different. People seem to like to ignore that Gabe Logan died at the end of Logan’s Shadow. Garvin literally killed off the main character so he wouldn’t have to make any more SF games. Plus, despite all the praise, they didn’t sell. Very low sales all around.”

Spoilers end here.

Okay, so what exactly is this new PS4 game, then?

“I know what they’re doing, but even if I don’t work there anymore, I don’t think it would be kosher to go running my mouth off.

“Hard to say if you should be excited,” she added. “There’s a group of super talented guys there, and pretty much every project has been chaos till the last 6 mo when they usually work super hard to pull it together.
But there’s a lot of burnout right now. Lots of talent has left over the last year.”

It sounds like the studio is a mess, and honestly, it doesn’t sound like their new game is going to turn out too well- she doesn’t sound too hot on it. For some reason, I am getting big The Order/Sony Santa Monica vibes here- I can only hope the studio survives all of this unscathed.

Sony may have publicly sworn off from supporting the Vita with any further big AAA games, but either they were lying, or they changed their mind, or Sony Bend really did not get the memo, if this job listing is to be believed.

The job listing is actually pretty clear that it is for a Vita game: “We just scratched the surface on what the Vita can do with Uncharted Golden Abyss and expect to push the platform even further with our future projects,” it reads.

Sony Bend certainly have a great track record with Sony’s portables- they developed the Syphon Filter games and Resistance Retribution on the PSP, and they developed the stunning Uncharted: Golden Abyss for the PS Vita as a launch game, which to this day remains unbeaten in terms of its production values.

Another game from them for the Vita can only be a good thing- it means Sony hasn’t relegated the Vita to entirely being the PS4’s accessory/indie games player just yet. It means we may yet see another high quality, high production effort from Sony on the Vita, although it remains to be seen if it will be Uncharted or something else entirely.

Hopefully, this time, it actually sells.

In Europe, Sony actually cares about the PlayStation Vita a little more than they do over here in the States. So, from time to time, we see some surprising moves on their part to sell the system- which is, again, more than can be said of SCEA, who seem content to let the system languish and die.

Anyway, SCEE, on the other hand, just announced a new PS Vita Mega Pack, this one themed with adventure games. And it seems like a hell of a deal, packing, as it will, five exceptionally good games.

Here are the games that the Mega Pack will have:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Tearaway
• Gravity Rush
• Escape Plan
• TxK

The Mega Pack can be purchased in two ways:

• A memory card bundle comes with an 8GB memory card and a PlayStation Store voucher code to download all five games.
• The PS Vita + memory card bundle also includes an 8GB memory card and a voucher code for all five games, as well as a PlayStation Vita system to play them on.

The first bundle will set you back only by €39.99 RRP- that’s the cost of one full price game, but instead you get five- while the bundle with the system included is €199.99RRP, or the price of the system itself. Essentially, you get five games free.

Holy shit, Sony. Advertise the hell out of this thing.

Remember Lost? Wasn’t that a great TV show? Anyway, now actor Dominic Monaghan, star of the TV show as well as the Lord of the Rings movies, may have possibly inadvertently teased a new Uncharted game in an interview about his role in the promotion of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, reports Gamespot.

“I’ll always stay focused on the gaming world and see what’s coming up,” he said. “The new Uncharted I’m really excited to see how that’s going to be and obviously both new gaming systems.”

Of course, that’s not enough to go by, and it is entirely possible that he referenced the ‘new Uncharted’ much as people reference the ‘new Zelda’ or the ‘new Metal Gear.’ In that it might not mean anything, and maybe he is just a series fan. However, him specifically mentioning the series by name right after referring to his involvement in the gaming industry might mean that there is more to this than that.

The last Uncharted game was the middling Uncharted: Golden Abyss released for Sony’s struggling PlayStation Vita handheld; however, that title was developed by Sony Bend. Assumedly, a new Uncharted game would not be developed by champion developers Naughty Dog, the creators of the series.