Here’s the Uncharted 4 Story We Could’ve Had

I am a huge Uncharted fan. I tried to think of a more hyperbolic first line that would really reflect my passion for the franchise, but I came up with nothing. That’s a creative writing degree for ya.

I came into the series during Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, (I immediately went back to play Drake’s Fortune, of course), and since then I have been hanging on to the series’ every moment. After one play through of any of the four main Uncharted games or even the standalone, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, the gameplay- all the climbing, running, jumping, and puzzle solving- becomes second nature; and though the gameplay has adopted new elements as the series has grown, what really keeps players coming back with each new installment is the story. Fans of Uncharted have been with series hero Nathan Drake through it all and have not only watched him develop professionally, but also personally, especially in terms of his relationships with Sully and Elena.

Over the course of the series, we’ve gotten small details about Nate’s past, namely in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception with that fifteen year flashback to his teenage years, and then again with Marlowe teasing the fact that “Drake” wasn’t his real last name. While that information was a good foundation to build the story of a fourth game, it had to be done in a way that made sense with the Nate that we’ve known for nearly a decade, while still introducing a compelling side of his past that players have never seen.

The answer to that, of course, was Sam Drake, Nate’s older brother who was believed to have died while trying to escape from prison. Very much alive, though, Sam comes back into Nate’s life fifteen years later, claiming that he needs help tracking down the lost treasure of legendary pirate Henry Avery because his life depends on it. The problem? Nate has finally settled down with Elena in an attempt to lead “a normal life”, and leaving that to help Sam, in Nate’s mind, could ruin everything. Yes, even despite the fact that Nate could have easily explained to Elena what was happening, because it’s not like she has gone through the entire series by his side, uncovering ancient relics and taking down warlords, but I digress.

Fans still debate whether introducing Sam was the right narrative path for the series- how could we not have heard anything about him in the last three games?- claiming that it made the A Thief’s End feel forced. I don’t think it made the game feel forced, per se (I actually thought the ending nicely wrapped up the entire series), but now that the original story idea for A Thief’s End has surfaced, I will say I’m highly intrigued with the story we could have had.

Anybody else remember this teaser trailer that was released at the end of 2013? While there are still elements like “For God and Liberty” that made it into the final narrative of A Thief’s End, the darker tones of the trailer, with someone seemingly out to get Nathan Drake for his betrayal, never happened. This trailer came on the heels of Amy Hennig’s departure from Naughty Dog. Hennig, who was the lead writer and creative director for the first three Uncharted games, never spoke publicly about leaving the company, but Kotaku news editor Jason Schreier gives insightful accounts of the situation in his book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. You can also read some of the excerpts from Reddit user Wellgun3, which details the role that Sam initially had in the fourth game:

Uncharted 4, as Hennig envisioned it, would introduce the world to Nathan Drake’s old partner, Sam. We hadn’t seen Sam in previous Uncharted games, because for fifteen years Nathan had thought he was dead, left behind during a Panamanian prison escape gone awry. In Hennig’s version of Uncharted 4, Sam would be one of the main villains, bitter toward Nathan for leaving him to die.

With this new information, it’s likely that’s Sam we hear in the trailer, telling Nate “…But you can’t outrun the past, and when it catches up, when all your lies collapse around you, I’ll be there sifting through the wreckage. You owe me”.  Eventually, though, Hennig’s vision of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and the story we actually got in 2016 would start to merge. Over the course of the game, players would learn that Nate and Sam are, in fact, brothers and that they need to team up in order to take down the game’s real antagonist, Rafe. In the early development stages of A Thief’s End, Hennig was also playing with the idea of adding new gameplay mechanics such as cars and grappling hooks- both of which made it into the final game.

Let us know what you think about the original story of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and your thoughts on Nate’s final adventure.