Naughty Dog are preparing to say goodbye to one of their most popular franchises when Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End releases next month.
Still, while it’s more than likely gonna be the last Uncharted to star Nathan Drake (and the last one to be made by Naughty Dog), it seems there’s a chance the series could live on with Uncharted 5 – even if Naughty Dog hand over the reigns to a new studio.
Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann has recently said he’d be happy for another studio to take over, but only if they were able to understand and capture the “essence” of Uncharted.
Druckmann told GamesRadar:
If they made a great game I’d be excited. I’d want to play an Uncharted I didn’t work on. It’d be a lot of fun. Obviously, we would have a big part in it as the creators of the franchise. We’d just want to make sure they get the essence of it right.
So, it seems Naughty Dog won’t really be leaving the series behind for good. Even if a new team took over for Uncharted 5, Druckmann and co would be keeping an eye on things (albeit from a distance) to make sure the new studio didn’t completely piss on the legacy of the franchise.
It would be pretty surprising if this was the end of Uncharted. For one thing, popular franchises just aren’t allowed to die these days (that’s why Marvel have films planned up till the last syllable of recorded time).
Whatever Naughty Dog move onto after Uncharted 4 is anyone’s guess. Personally, I’m hoping they finally get cracking on The Last of Us 2.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.