The PlayStation 3 turns 20 years old in November, and you can’t talk about the console without talking about Uncharted. Naughty Dog’s globetrotting franchise was one of its crowning jewels, and this early into May, it celebrates two significant milestones.
First and more immediate is the 10-year anniversary of Uncharted 4: A Thief End. Originally released on May 10, 2016 for the PlayStation 4, the game marked Naughty Dog’s first non-remaster dive into the console and was billed back then as the series’ final entry. It also had a famously troubled development, including crunch and the longtime creative director/co-writer Amy Hennig and director/designer Justin Richmond both leaving in 2014. Their exits led to heavy rewrites, made clear by the game’s reveal trailer hinting at a darker, potentially less family-friendly tale not followed through in the final product.
Despite the circumstances of its existence, Uncharted 4 was a critical and commercial darling. As is, it stands as the best-selling entry in the series and one of the PS4’s best-selling titles. More so than The Last of Us, this game is arguably where Naughty Dog’s vibe shift occurs: longtime employees (and Last of Us directors) Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley took over after Hennig and Richmond’s departures, with Straley leaving after development wrapped on A Thief’s End. Druckmann’s stayed at Naughty Dog, gradually becoming a more central figure and boosting his profile enough to become a key creative on The Last of Us’ HBO adaptation. Far from the first developer to rise up the ranks where he works, it’s tough to not associate Naughty Dog with him these days, which has partially backfired on the studio as it’s repeatedly revisited its post-apocalyptic franchise throughout the 2020s.
Going further into the past, May 9 marked the 20th anniversary of the original Uncharted’s debut at E3 2006. (For the first 11 years of its life, the showcase began in May rather than June or July.) After four Jak & Daxter games for the PlayStation 2, it was a big deal to hear Naughty Dog was leaving it behind to work on a new IP, let alone one in a photorealistic style and set in the real world. Then known under the codename “Big,” it didn’t take long for the project to draw comparisons to Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, even with its focus on cover-based shooting. From that point on, interest in the game grew with each new look at it.
When Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune finally came out on November 19, 2007, its positive reception birthed a key PlayStation franchise and helped usher in cinematic, usually third-person games that exist to this day. The number of titles that stand in its shadow is too many to count, but Uncharted itself has been MIA for a while. The movie finally came out in 2022, while its last proper game installment was the standalone offshoot The Lost Legacy. These days, it’s not a question of “if” we’ll get more Uncharted, but “when”: a 2023 PS5 ad got fans buzzing with a vague tease of a woman in a cave, and they’ve more recently been excited by Instagram posts from Lost Legacy director Shaun Escayg. Naughty Dog may be at work on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but like Nathan Drake, it can’t resist exploring the past for too long.
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