May 10 was Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’s 10-year anniversary. The PlayStation 4 sequel effectively caps off the saga of Nathan Drake, even as rumors of some kind of fifth game continue floating around. Less tidy was Uncharted 4‘s development, which entailed pretty significant changes after creative director Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog in 2014. We’ve known bits and pieces about the original vision for Uncharted 4 for many years, but YouTuber Thekempy has now posted a feature-length video compiling all sorts of files, behind-the-scenes videos, and early development footage that gives us our best look yet at what might have been, and there’s some really fascinating stuff in it.
You should definitely watch Thekempy’s video below, but some of the highlights include a mostly chronological retelling of how Uncharted 4’s story differed from the Neil Druckmann-led version we got in 2016, reveals that characters like Victor “Sully” Sullivan and 17th-century pirate Henry Avery would have been playable at certain points, and several minutes of motion capture footage from this initial draft featuring actors Alan Tudyk, Todd Stashwick, and Graham McTavish, none of whom appear in the final game.
Uncharted 4’s development was notoriously troubled, and it’s interesting to look back at some of the game’s earliest promotional material and recognize that it was significantly different in tone, such as the original announcement teaser that featured Stashwick as the character who would eventually become Sam Drake, a role that would later be taken on by Troy Baker. Though Thekempy’s video doesn’t have all the details on some of Hennig’s original version, it’s easily the most comprehensive look we have at the game that never was.
Right now, Naughty Dog is working on Interagalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but it’s also throwing around wishy washy hints of a third Last of Us game. So it remains to be seen if the studio will return to Nathan Drake in the future.