In a blog post, creative director Neil Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley confirmed that Uncharted 4 needs an extra month to finally reach the already-high expectations and standards. Being called the largest Uncharted game to date, the studio began to realize that a handful of key sequences required extra resources in order to hit their deadlines on time. The extra development time will enable the team to apply more polish to the experience before going gold.
The studio also tried to balance the bad news with a bit of good, by confirming that production on the game is wrapping up and the studio is excited to finally share what they’re promising is a proper send off for Nathan Drake.
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This is the second time Naughty Dog has had to push the release date for their highly anticipated action adventure title. Originally slated for a November 2015 release, the game was ultimately delayed into March of 2016 to give the team additional development time in order to tighten up the experience and to provide a better ending for the treasure hunting hero.
Unfortunately, that left a major hole in Sony’s already thin holiday line up, something they acknowledged earlier this year, calling their offerings sparse. While 2015 may end on a lighter note for the PlayStation 4, it’s clear Sony is excited for the potential of 2016, with a first party lineup of games that the company is calling ‘incredible’.
It’s been a busy month for the Uncharted 4 team at Naughty Dog as the closed beta for the multiplayer component wrapped up earlier in the month. The beta feedback has been positive and data collection has presumably given the developer a lot to consider, as evidenced in a recent interview from lead multiplayer designer Robert Cogburn. While teasing some future plans the studio has for keeping player engagement high long after release, Cogburn also revealed some data points of what worked well for players and what the team needs to tinker with a bit more before launch.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is now launching exclusively for PlayStation 4 on April 26, 2016.
Source: PlayStation Blog
