Speaking during an interview with Press Start, Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer revealed that the California-based studio is cramming as much detail into the upcoming Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End as possible in terms of textures and animations.
Meyer revealed that Nathan Drake’s final treasure hunting romp is pushing the boundaries of what’s available to cram onto a dual Blu-ray disc.
“[The game] is 48 gigabytes and it’s really pushing the amount of space we have on a dual Bluray," commented Meyer. “We’re trying to pack so much detail into everything. There’s an incredible amount of textures and animations [in the game]”, he added. “We’re trying to increase the fidelity and level of detail in everything that we can.”
The PS4’s added horse power has also afforded Naughty Dog the chance to expand features—notably the jeep, which cropped up in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune—that players were only given a fleeting glimpse of previously.
"[With the Jeep, in earlier Uncharted games] you would only be able to be in the vehicle but weren’t able to drive or use it as part of problem solving," he explained. “We’re able to layer everything on top of [one] another [like with] the grappling hook, which you can now use in combat and when traversing the land.”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is scheduled to ship exclusively on PS4 on May 10, 2016. The game is set a few years after its predecessor, and sees Nate coming out of retirement as a fortune hunter as he’s reunited with his long-lost brother, Sam, who was previously thought to have snuffed it some 15 years ago.
Joined once again by long-time mentor, Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan, the trio embark on a globe-trotting journey to hunt down a legendary pirate’s treasure, with their adventure eventually leading them to the sprawling plains and jungles of Madagascar.
Naughty Dog has confirmed that this is the final entry in the 21-million selling franchise that they will be involved with, though they have said they would allow another studio to take over if it’s good enough.