Yesterday, Naughty Dog set the Internet alight with the extended, stupendous demo for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. It was quite frankly a tour de force, following Nat and his brother Sam as they are pursued by a group of bandits. Punches, bullets and one-liners fly at a near-relentless pace, and it’s an impressive look at the sequel’s single-player component.
In the aftermath of its debut on Twitch, the studio took time to answer some questions and queries about A Thief’s End and, specifically, whether it will run at 30 or 60 frames-per-second upon launch. Alas, Naughty Dog opted to lock the game’s single-player at the former technical threshold, citing the overwhelming workload required to push the campaign to 60fps as the core reason behind the decision. As reported by GameSpot, here’s what Co-lead Designer Anthony Newman had to say about ND’s method of approach.
“We had a really long, involved conversation about it with all the leads and directors. We just realized that, for the game we wanted to make, to make the best game possible, [30fps] was just something that we had to do. If we wanted to hit a locked 60fps, there’s a lot of optimizations in the environments that would have to happen,” Newman went on. “This would make each level take longer to make.
Multiplayer is a different story, however. According to Newman, 60 frames-per-second remains the target for the studio, as they strive for a fluid online experience. Granted, there are no guarantees that Naughty Dog will reach the technical landmark in question, but fans can take solace in the fact that the creative team is gunning for the smoothest multiplayer set-up possible.
Following its inclusion in The Last of Us Remastered, Photo Mode will also be included in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and judging by the razor-sharp visuals on display in yesterday’s tech demo, there’s plenty of potential for fans to capture some truly stunning moments from Drake’s latest adventure.