Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will be using FACS to implement facial animations. It essentially taxonomizes facial movements by their appearance on the face. In short, FACS is an automated system that extract geometric features from facial movements and renders profiles for the same.
Coincidentally, it was also used in previous Uncharted games but A Thief’s End will have support extra features and shapes. This feature was confirmed by Eric Baldwin, who works as a Cinematic Animation Lead at Naughty Dog.
@Jeremy_Yates @LittleGuyInSky the facial controls are FACS based. We have some extra shapes as well for Ctrl and ease.
— Eric Baldwin (@consperic) December 9, 2014Last week, it was reported that Uncharted 4 will have 800 facial animations, however Jonathan Cooper, animator on Uncharted 4 has clarified that the game will have 800 facial poses and not animations.
Next-gen = physically simulated chest hair movement. Next up, armpits. Also, that's 800 facial poses, not animations. http://t.co/b7R0VJS1QO
— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) December 8, 2014And finally, game designer Bryan Singh stated that they will make Uncharted 4 different from The Last of Us but he acknowledges that the team did learned a lot from the latter.
@WhiteHotHeat23 Haha. I do love TLOU. But it'd be mistake to make both IPs feel/play the same. We did learn a lot from it though.
— Bryan Singh (@Monkokio) December 6, 2014Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will release late next year, exclusively for the PlayStation 4.