Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End captivated many of us when its gameplay trailer debuted at the PlayStation Experience last year. The level design looked to be significantly expanded from previous games to allow for numerous paths and alternative routes.
Co-lead designer Ricky Cambier expanded on this idea with Game Informer. “I think our goal with the layouts in some of these spaces is that there’s not that golden path. You turn this corner, you’re going to find something surprising. Or maybe this way you’re going to use your potions; the mixup of your different tools. There might be a shimmy ledge this way, there might be things that break this way; so every path has that action, that tempo that you want.”
Naughty Dog is currently looking at “figuring out how to design on this new scale” and utilizing the PS4’s power.
“Because you want to go bigger in this jungle layout that we have. You can see just all the avenues that Drake has; these new tools. You give the player a tool like the grappling hook. Then you realize how much space you need to fulfill that and how far you can go. How you design a space that has that size and that epicness, but is still understandable, digestible.”
What are your thoughts on Uncharted 4’s approach to level design? Let us know in the comments.
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