So, yeah, turns out Alan Tudyk was among the Uncharted 4 cast once upon a time, though decided to leave after the ''weird changes'', most notably concerning the removal of Amy Hennig. That he explicitly states that he ''made some friends - not with Naughty Dog - but I made some friends with the people that left'' really sets a rather bitter tone. He also notes Todd Stashwick too, who was originally starring as Sam, Nathan Drake's brother, before he too left shortly after the kerfuffle surrounding Hennig. To then funnily enough go and work with Hennig on that Star Wars thing she's writing for Visceral.

The amount of behind-the-scenes drama surrounding Uncharted 4 is getting to be borderline palpable at this point. Ever since Amy Hennig was replaced with Neil Druckmann & Bruce Straley it seems there's always something cropping up to remind how development has potentially become an even more chaotic affair than video game development usually is!

With Nolan North also having stated that they had to scrap ''eight months'' of work once the creative leadership of the game changed hands, it's hard not to become at least a little anxious. I'm sure the game will be fine, but I can't help envision the story maybe coming across as a little rushed in spots. Though such events is undoubtedly why the game was delayed, so hopefully that time spent was enough to make sure they're able to make the game they truly want to make. It's at least recently been confirmed that the motion-capture's all finished, which makes for another comforting indicator that my anxieties will be for naught in the end! On the flipside, it's still a shame we couldn't have had Tudyk lending his talents to the game.

Yeah, there was definitely a real bitter tone to everything he said.

After what happened to Uncharted 3 when things behind the scenes shifted around, I hope things shifted soon enough here to not greatly affect the game.

I'm not worried about the game, as all their stuff has gone through a bunch of iteration (most notably, that whole Last of Us alternate story).

With a changing up top, there will always be drama. But I'm glad that instead of trying to recreate Amy's vision, they went their own way. Probably why Tudyk may have been pushed aside a little.

Amy is one of my favorite people in the industry, but I want her to tell her stories. Not Neil or Bruce or anyone else. And since it's such a flagship franchise, I'm sure Sony doesn't want this to come out half-baked.

If Uncharted 4 is a success then we'll likely never get to hear what kind of bullshit happened to not only get Amy shitcanned from Naughty Dog, but Druckman and that other guy will slap a choke hold so tight on anyone that knows anything about it that it'll likely never see the light of day.

If Uncharted 4 comes out and it's as bad or worse than Uncharted 3, oh boy get the popcorn!

I'm personally hoping for the more interesting of these two outcomes.

Now i'm a little worried again about uncharted 4, but i hope it's still good. I mean i'm sure it will at least be fine, but it needs to be at least as great as the old ones to really be something though. While i think The last of us is one of the most overrated and worst playing games i've ever experienced, the writing did seem ok from what i played of it.

On another note, i wish this show was on netflix or amazon prime seems pretty cool.

Neil Druckmann helped write the good Uncharted games (ie not Uncharted 3) and he wrote and directed The Last of Us. I have complete and utter faith in him to deliver, no matter the circumstances.

I'm not worried about the game, and I don't care about whatever drama there might have been to cause Alan Tudyk to leave the project. It's not like he's my personal friend or the reason I would have bought the game.

@oldirtybearon said:

"As bad or worse than Uncharted 3" is the most internet commenter phrase I've ever seen by an internet commenter.

Uncharted 3 was pretty good. It was perhaps only a little disappointing in context with how incredible the leap from 1 to 2 was.

Ok so i wrote a large description about how the last half of both games were way to similar in set pieces, pacing and plot points however i got a token error and it all got deleted. I'm not going to write it all out again but It's almost like they ran out of ideas towards the end of U3 and just used the U2 script to finish the game.

@forkboy: After having played all 3 in the Uncharted collection, Drakes Deception is by far my favourite. I have no idea why everyone shits on it so much, I think it's just because it didn't revolutionise things the way that Among Thievs did and because it's more of the same. But I think Drakes Deception is where they perfected the formula and it's definitely the most enjoyable to me.

who cares its uncharted...

@pompouspizza: I am definitely in that camp with you, it wasn't as impressive a step up as Among Thieves but yeah, they had something great, why break it? It was such a stunning thing and definitely seemed like they refined the formula to a perfect point.

As long as the game is good, the behind the scenes stuff don't really matter much. I still have faith in Naughty Dog and Druckmann/Straley.

The Kinda Funny Games crew discusses this in depth in their latest podcast if you guys are interested. It's a great listen, actually. They were pretty darn articulate.

From 2pm today (i.e. right now) there is a panel going on at the London MCM Comic Con of Nolan North and Alan Tudyk together to talk about the show Con Man (from Alan Tudyk and starring Nathan Fillion - but Nolan also appears in it). It would be interesting to be there and see if anyone in the audience (if here's a question session) is harsh enough to ask about this.

I've already posted ad infinitum why Uncharted 3 was a disappointment, most recently in this thread, and I plan to eventually write a blog as a means to properly encapsulate what it is that makes Uncharted 3 inferior 2.

...Since this thread has now apparently turned into ''is Uncharted 3 good''.

@pompouspizza: For me Uncharted 2 was better than Uncharted 3. Now that's not to say that I think Uncharted 3 is a bad game, which is a frankly ludicrous suggestion, however I felt that the balance that Uncharted 2 struck between combat and puzzle exploration, which was spot on, was skewed more in favour of combat in Uncharted 3. The combat in the Uncharted series is perfectly serviceable and in short bursts is fun and exciting but in longer sections it can feel frustrating and not very fun so the pacing and flow of the overall game wasn't as smooth to me in Drake's Deception.

This is all based on playing the trilogy on the PS3. I can't speak to the Uncharted Collection on PS4 so it's possible they've done some rebalancing.

People shit on it because it's easier to write one sentence brainlessly declaring something the best/worst thing ever than to explain in any detail what it was they did or didn't like. As soon as they attempt to explain their like or dislike of something it opens them up to someone with a contrary opinion trying to discuss it with them and then they have to think about it, possibly even cause them to realise that they don't really believe that something is as amazing/terrible as they declared it to be. God forbid that ever happens.

That got slightly off topic there. Apologies.

I feel like I'm reading a copy of people about the next Avengers movie

It's a good game, but the second half doesn't feel quite as tight as everything that preceded it (including the first two games). Cutter completely disappears from the story, and when you read about how Graham McTavish left the game to be in The Hobbit the oddness of the second half starts to make some sense.

They set up Cutter to be a big character in the first half but just drop him. Literally, they drop him. He breaks his leg and can't continue for the rest of the game. The story goes on, and it's mostly fine, but you can feel something missing from it.

I really enjoyed their take on Iram of the Pillars and the jar Solomon filled with jinn though.

If that happens and you didn't copy your post, try refreshing the page. My response usually pops back up in the text field and I can copy it and try to post it again.

If Uncharted 4 is "The Last of Us but with Drake" than yeah, I'll probably be disappointed.

Neil Druckmann comes off to me as one of those one hit wonder guys. I'm not entirely convinced he can direct an incredible Uncharted game. The writing seemed noticeably off to me especially with the jungle gameplay. I miss Amy Henning :( This guy apparently forced out Amy, and a lot of ND employees that didn't agree with his "vision" so lets see if all of that unnecessary drama was worth it.

I hope in the future game development won't be a covert as it is these days. That's not to say drama that we don't see doesn't occur in the likes of film or tv, but I'd totally put down some money to watch a behind the scenes collection for something high profile like Uncharted or Fallout 4.

@asilentprotagonist: Straley and Druckmann were leads on Uncharted 2, w/ Druckmann heavily involved in the writing. That's a fair bit of directing responsibility. He's already more than a one hit wonder, although that's not to say I don't have severe reservations regarding the actual plot of Uncharted 2, deliberately hokey though it may be.

What do you mean exactly? Story or gameplay? Gameplay speaking from what they've shown it very much looks like an Uncharted game, and while the story may likely tackle something a little darker and more mature, I don't doubt there'll still be plenty of light-hearted wisecracks along the way at that.

In regards to Tudyk, it's definitely a bummer that things went the way they did, that man was born for a game like Uncharted. I'm starting to feel as if the "mythos" behind Hennig's departure has grown to the point at which people are taking sides between her and Druckmann/Straley, and when the truth finally comes out (if it does) it's going to be a lot less glamorous than everybody thinks.

As for the other conversation going on in this thread, I really think comparing the virtues of an Uncharted game based on the narrative is a fool's errand. For me Uncharted is the ultimate video game realization of Indiana Jones - the overarching narrative I could give or take, but there are specific moments that really resonate because the characters and set pieces are written so well. Uncharted 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but if you asked me what Lazarevic's motivations were I'd be hard pressed to tell you. Then the blue dudes come into the picture and it all goes out the window.

@theht: Yeah, cutter's disappearance from the game is a shame because I really liked his character. I had completely forgotten the reason why he was cut until you mentioned it.

I trust that Bruce and Neil will do what's best for Uncharted and will still move on ahead regardless of these weird allegiances some staff have to a former lead. I could understand if staff were leaving because they were being bullied but without deeper explanations for departures it's just coming across as weird melodrama.

I've said it a dozen times, but Uncharted 1 and 2 had absolutely awful super natural enemies in the final chapters that nearly ruined both games (I kicked them both down to Easy just to be done with them). Uncharted 3 does not do that, remains just as entertaining and thrilling as the other two (and the main evil woman was a legitimately mean Big Bad unlike the other games' villains which felt more like props) and so I completed it on Medium before immediately running through it on Hard as well.

I also played all three games in a marathon last summer when PSN had a good sale on them (something like $40 for the whole series) so there wasn't any years-long wait between the games for me. I felt they got progressively better each time out, as games tend to do. I really agree with the idea that people were just bummed out UC3 wasn't the quantum leap from 2 that 2 was from 1.

I also think I've heard people specifically call out the shipyard firefight as one of the low points of the series, whereas that fight was one of my favorite enemy encounters of the entire last generation. To be honest I kept a save at that point in the game just to play it over a few times.

Joss Whedon would've just randomly killed him off.

After listening to the most recent Nerdist podcast with Tudyk, you can tell he is still a little sore about it, even after all this time.

For reference when referring to Nolan Norths character in Con Man

Alan Tudyk-"Jerry Landsing played by Nolan North, who is one of the funniest guys. Big BIG voice-over guy....Drake..Nathan Drake..uh uh from whatever the show...

Chris Hardwick says "Uncharted"

Alan Tudyk-"Uncharted, yeah I never... anyway.. Big Xbox guy"

His tone is so snarky.

In hindsight, the game turned out great without him and his career has blossomed. I would still love to know how different the original story was with Alan tudyk and Todd Stashwick with what we got.