Please note that if you have not played Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, you need to watch out, because this post contains spoilers on the history of Nathan Drake. You have been warned.
If you were attentive to the news prior to the launch of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, you should know that Naughty Dog has mentioned several times that it would be very difficult to see Nathan Drake back for a new game. Consequently, many players thought the adventurer died.
However, Nathan Drake survived and had a happy ending. Now, Neil Druckmann, director of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, revealed that it was never its intention to kill this character, partly because this idea did not work with the tone of the franchise.
“It felt like Nathan Drake didn’t have too many places left to go,” Druckmann commented in an interview of Writers Guild of America podcast. “How do we wrap it up in this definitive way while still maintaining the tone of the series? A lot of the times, when you say it’s the last one, people go, ‘Oh, you’re going to kill him.’ That’s one way to make it definitive.”
In addition, Druckmann said that keeping the destination Drake’s fate as ambiguous in interviews was a way to generate more intrigue in the people, but he made it clear that he never thought of killing a beloved character.
“We pretty early on decided that, tonally, [killing Drake] wouldn’t be right for this kind of lighthearted pulp action-adventure series,” he said.
So that, surely many fans will be happy with the latest adventure of Nathan Drake, it is satisfying to see that one of the favorite video game heroes managed to have a prosperous future away from their adventures.
Also, remember that the team of Naughty Dog mentioned previously that they are not willing to develop Uncharted 5, but would have no problem in helping another studio that wants to take over the franchise, probably with a new character.
