Warning: This news story contains major spoilers pertaining to the climax of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End on PlayStation 4. Do not venture forward beyond this point unless you have played and completed the game, or don’t mind having the ending spoiled for you.
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Developer Naughty Dog has revealed that it never planned to kill off Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, believing that doing so would not lend itself well to the series’ overall tone.
Speaking on the Writers Guild of America podcast, co-director Neil Druckmann acknowledged that fans anticipated a sticky end for the cocky fortune hunter, but made it clear his death was never on the cards.
"It felt like Nathan Drake didn’t have too many places left to go," said Druckmann. "How do we wrap it up in this definitive way while still maintaining the tone of the series? A lot of the times, when you say it’s the last one, people go, ‘Oh, you’re going to kill him.’ That’s one way to make it definitive."
"We pretty early on decided that, tonally, [killing Drake] wouldn’t be right for this kind of lighthearted pulp action-adventure series," he added.
Uncharted 4 was released exclusively for PlayStation 4 on May 10, 2016. The game became a huge hit, selling over 2.7 million copies during its first week alone and picking up rave reviews from critics.
The game picks up three years after the events of 2011’s Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and sees Nate reunited with his long-lost brother, Sam, as the pair embark on a globe-trotting hunt for a lost pirate treasure.
While Naughty Dog has confirmed this will be its final Uncharted game, it has said the franchise may still continue with another developer at the helm.
It’s also working on the Uncharted 4 single-player DLC alongside a series of multiplayer expansions, which will keep the Santa Monica outfit busy until spring 2017 at the earliest.