Last week we brought you first word about Uncharted 2's initial sales and developer Naughty Dog's plans to support the game with DLC this year. Today we're pleased to bring you the entire interview we conducted with Creative Director Amy Hennig, who was very generous with her time. We discussed the game making process, the advantage of good voice acting, the possibility of bringing the franchise to PSP, working exclusively on PS3, and we finished by getting her thoughts on Legacy of Kain, the previous franchise she worked on at Crystal Dynamics six years ago. Enjoy!
IndustryGamers: The game's had glowing reviews, but how do you feel about the retail reception so far? Meeting expectations, exceeding them?
Amy Hennig: I would definitely say it's exceeding expectations. Being in the industry for a while you learn to try to manage your expectations because you'd rather be surprised with good news than disappointed. It's a tough business, but from the early numbers I've seen getting reported back it's exceeded any estimates we had internally, and it's certainly outsold the first game by many, many times. That and the critical reception so far has been really gratifying.
IG: Obviously Indiana Jones has been an influence, but what other influences affected your design choices on Uncharted 2?
AH: A lot of our influences were the same ones that were influences for Indiana Jones. When we set out to establish a new franchise or IP and we were just starting with the PS3, we knew we wanted to do something that was different than everybody else was doing in the industry. It felt like there was a lot of cynicism in games. Things were gritty and post-apocalyptic and it seemed like what was missing – for us anyway – was the charm and the humor and a little bit of romance (in the non-specific sense of the word), and just the fun and color of a genre like action-adventure. We went back to the earliest aspects of the genre, back to novels from the 19th century through early pulp models like Doc Savage and really early adventure movies like Gunga Din and movie serials like Jungle Girl from the '50s... the list of influences is huge. And we dug up all these obscure movies like China and Secret of the Incas that had influenced Lucas and Spielberg as well.
And in addition to Indiana, we looked at Goonies and more recently things like National Treasure and DaVinci Code, and we examined this whole spectrum of the genre and everyone playing in this same sandbox and we said, “Wouldn't it be fun if we dissected this experience?” We broke it down into its component parts and conventions and we said, “How do we take that well loved experience and turn it into a truly interactive gameplay experience while telling a story that would have that nostalgic appeal but not seem corny or cheesily retro?” I think the trap that a lot of movies in this genre fall into is they get a little too tongue-in-cheek. We wanted it to be contemporary.
IG: We're aware that a movie is in the works with Columbia Pictures, but putting together a story for a video game versus a film are two very different challenges. Can you talk about your approach to crafting a story specifically for a video game?
AH: The things that you wouldn't even worry about in a film like a costume change become a huge issue for us because suddenly you're asking an artist to spend a month or two remodeling a character... and then there are other things that would be miserable for a filmmaker to deal with like a shot where the characters weren't quite filmed correctly or the lighting was bad. Well, we can just move the sun! [laughs] So things that are easy for us are hard for them and vice versa, but there are a lot of similarities too. Our challenge is to take a lot of elements you might find in a film and say, “We don't want to make that a passive experience, we need to make it an active one.” We need to make sure the controller is in the player's hands as much as possible even though there are some non-interactive moments.
And we want to take this spectacular set piece of this intense moment and let you play through it, which is our advantage over film. We have to acknowledge that our medium is interactive and film is passive. It's a completely different experience, and it's actually different in terms of dealing with questions of agency and morality on the player's part. I think there are some interesting things that we have to deal with that film doesn't because you can watch a film and say it's an edifying experience... but if you've got the controller in your hands and you're actively doing things it's a whole different emotional and moral question. I think it's important for us to look at that. Also, to tell a traditional story there's a certain amount of linearity required, but we need to widen that up for the player... we need to give them a lot of latitude and choices so they can personalize the experience.
Another challenge is, because we want the player to identify with Nathan Drake, we don't ever want to put the player in a privileged position like you could in a film. So for instance, we never can cut away and say, “Meanwhile back at the ranch here's what the vilains are doing.” The player doesn't see or experience anything that Drake doesn't. That makes the storytelling that much more complicated because we can't fill in information; all the exposition has to happen right there in the game.
