Every single Uncharted was groundbreaking for its time. Not just the narrative, but the gameplay and the technology itself. They delivered again for The Last of Us and sequel. So two A-grade franchises under their belt.
Doesn’t mean they’ll have another hit but it stands to reason they’re not sat on their asses doing nothing right now. They’re either working on a TLOU spinoff or a new franchise or both. Now I’m not privy to what they’re up to but I’m sure if you google “Naughty Dog rumors” you might pick up some hints. e.g. one rumour suggests a game codenamed Paradox whose description sounds oddly close to what the Fallen London (Sunless Sea / Sunless Skies) franchise is although I doubt it would be the same, mores a pity. Fallen London is such a mad premise it shocks me it hasn’t gotten it’s own TV series.
The gameplay was QTE heavy Gears of War cover shooting. There was a massive wave of cover shooters in the PS3 era and a similarly heavy push for QTEs. And… I would give Infamous 2 (2011) and God of War 3 (2010) the credit for likely reaching the peak of what QTEs can do narratively. And while they were contemporaries of Uncharted (07-11), so were games like Gears of War, Kane & Lynch (eww), and so forth. Also, Freedom Fighters (actually good) was 2003 and while I don’t think it had snap cover, it was very much in that vein.
The other two big things I will give Uncharted is the focus on climbing (which Ubi had been doing since PoP: Sands of Time in 2003) and overall “plays like a movie” that was a similar push throughout the industry with ties back to System Shock 2 (1999), Half-Life 1 (1998… somehow), Call of Duty 1 (2003), and… you know, the entirety of the FMV Adventure genre.
Also… it is literally Dude Raider. Uhm… the concept of that. Since I am now pretty sure that was the title of a porno.
Uncharted was GOOD but far from “groundbreaking” once you get outside of the PS3. And, even within the PS3, 2 and 3 were very much iterations and evolutions of the original formula.
Which is why I get back to The Last of Us largely being their big, some might say only, example of something so big that it transcended console borders.
Just because it makes me giggle. I mostly dipped out of console gaming from the mid PS2 to the late PS3. But my sister had a PS3 because she needed a blu ray player. And I remember swinging by her place to help her out with something and trying out Uncharted 2. And getting IMMENSELY stuck at the start of the museum (?) heist because I kept thinking I needed to jump off a hold or do something timed rather than just following the yellow brick road. Because I had been playing the Prince of Persia games and was used to jumping puzzles rather than jumping sequences.
Came back a year or three later and had a blast. But definitely remember thinking “Why the fuck did Naughty Dog waste time on this trash when they could have made more Jak and Daxter?”
Every single Uncharted was groundbreaking for its time. Not just the narrative, but the gameplay and the technology itself. They delivered again for The Last of Us and sequel. So two A-grade franchises under their belt.
Doesn’t mean they’ll have another hit but it stands to reason they’re not sat on their asses doing nothing right now. They’re either working on a TLOU spinoff or a new franchise or both. Now I’m not privy to what they’re up to but I’m sure if you google “Naughty Dog rumors” you might pick up some hints. e.g. one rumour suggests a game codenamed Paradox whose description sounds oddly close to what the Fallen London (Sunless Sea / Sunless Skies) franchise is although I doubt it would be the same, mores a pity. Fallen London is such a mad premise it shocks me it hasn’t gotten it’s own TV series.
The gameplay was QTE heavy Gears of War cover shooting. There was a massive wave of cover shooters in the PS3 era and a similarly heavy push for QTEs. And… I would give Infamous 2 (2011) and God of War 3 (2010) the credit for likely reaching the peak of what QTEs can do narratively. And while they were contemporaries of Uncharted (07-11), so were games like Gears of War, Kane & Lynch (eww), and so forth. Also, Freedom Fighters (actually good) was 2003 and while I don’t think it had snap cover, it was very much in that vein.
The other two big things I will give Uncharted is the focus on climbing (which Ubi had been doing since PoP: Sands of Time in 2003) and overall “plays like a movie” that was a similar push throughout the industry with ties back to System Shock 2 (1999), Half-Life 1 (1998… somehow), Call of Duty 1 (2003), and… you know, the entirety of the FMV Adventure genre.
Also… it is literally Dude Raider. Uhm… the concept of that. Since I am now pretty sure that was the title of a porno.
Uncharted was GOOD but far from “groundbreaking” once you get outside of the PS3. And, even within the PS3, 2 and 3 were very much iterations and evolutions of the original formula.
Which is why I get back to The Last of Us largely being their big, some might say only, example of something so big that it transcended console borders.
Just because it makes me giggle. I mostly dipped out of console gaming from the mid PS2 to the late PS3. But my sister had a PS3 because she needed a blu ray player. And I remember swinging by her place to help her out with something and trying out Uncharted 2. And getting IMMENSELY stuck at the start of the museum (?) heist because I kept thinking I needed to jump off a hold or do something timed rather than just following the yellow brick road. Because I had been playing the Prince of Persia games and was used to jumping puzzles rather than jumping sequences.
Came back a year or three later and had a blast. But definitely remember thinking “Why the fuck did Naughty Dog waste time on this trash when they could have made more Jak and Daxter?”