Naughty Dog almost gave Nate a stamina bar in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

From Eurogamer: "The climbing mechanic in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End almost saw lithe hero Nathan Drake come with his own little stamina bar in a bid to give an extra layer of difficulty to the game.

Naughty Dog's Josh Scherr, who co-wrote A Thief's End with Neil Druckmann and then went on to co-write The Lost Legacy, was a guest on YouTube channel Couch Soup over the weekend. Here, Scherr shared more about his illustrious career with Naughty Dog (which has spanned over 20 years) and gave some behind the scenes insight into Uncharted 4's development."

[ClayRules2012]

"A lot of the stuff that happens early on are prototypes of design things that eventually make it in [to a game]," Scherr explained. "We were looking to do some interesting things with the climbing mechanics [in Uncharted 4]... the long story short version of that is that we did all these interesting things with a stamina bar, trying to make it feel more challenging."

“However, this idea ultimately got scrapped as the Uncharted 4 team felt it "got in the way the way [of how Naughty Dog] liked to blend [its] platforming and gunplay".
"We didn't want to have people paying attention to stamina while they were also outrunning people shooting [at them] and all that kind of stuff," said Scherr. "We wanted to keep everything quick and moving along."

I’m glad they kept everything “quick and moving along” knowing that Uncharted has always been that “Summer Blockbuster” don’t wanna put the game down type of gaming experience!

I won’t say it wouldn’t have offered something interesting to the gameplay, had the team done this, because after originally playing TLOU when it released, I did think I’d be interesting to see Uncharted bring on some new form of health bar system, and the more you get shot at or hit in physical combat Nate gets injured and you’ll have to search for health packs (Like Last of Us) to hear him. But the difference with U4 would be depending on your level of injury, this would be taken into account and your moves would look sloppy, hits wouldn’t be as hard hitting etc. I can’t imagine that kinda work that’d go into making all those game systems work, let alone stamina, but just in theory, I woulda liked to try something like that “play-test” it anyways.

In the end, their formula worked great (as it always has) and the additions they did add in the game helped it feel fresh enough, while familiar, and an overall blast and wonderful conclusion to Nathan Drake’s globe trotting adventures.

Man, do I miss him Nate, Elena, Sully and Chloe!!!

[SenorFartCushion]

I’m not sure. It feels as though many devs are adding things like RPG mechanics and health bars at the expense of fun. I get that a lot of people like the Souls series and that paying attention to every bar and number is what they like about them but it shouldn’t be applied to every game because FromSoft is having a decent payday.

I’m looking at games like Control, Assassin’s Creed Origins and Gotham Knights. It feels as though every company is RPG-ifying their games to fit in.

Obviously it’s not just FromSoft games as there are games like The Witcher too, it’s just that I do blame FromSoft for creating a “git gud” attitude.

Really, it’s the creatively bankrupt stooges copying off the formula who are to blame.

[ClayRules2012]

I understand what your saying. And I agree, this such thing shouldn’t be applied to every game, regardless of said dev team making it popular and gamers liking that style of gameplay.

I wouldn’t want all dev teams to jump on the “What’s popular” style of gameplay/mechanics, all because this dev did it, and fans loved it, and there’s a place for that in the market, and if we adopt that as well we’ll pull in more people. Each dev team should strive to be as creative as possible with the visions for their games and bring something fresh with the formula they have, and not try to do this or add this just because a select group of gamers love that etc.

[rpvenom]

So apparently the health mechanics in uncharted is actually not health.. i remember reading an article saying that everytime you start turning red and begin dying.. its actually a luck meter.. the bullets are near missing but you eventually start to run out of luck. Thought that was pretty cool

[ClayRules2012]

Thank you for this. I believe that’s exactly how others explained this. My mistake for not saying it right. Much thanks!

[lellkay]

Glad they kept it as it is, Uncharted 4 was a brilliant product.

[KyRo]

I'm playing though them all again at the moment. Finished the first and second game but mainly cause I want to play 3 and 4 again. I don't really remember much of the fourth game but I remember not liking as much as the previous games because of its more serious tone compared to the previous games so I'm playing them all again just to see if my perception is still the same.

[lellkay]

@Kyro I liked all of the games, but I felt like the more serious tone actually worked better.

[ClayRules2012]

Nice. I hope you continue to really enjoy 3 and 4!

I understand you not liking 4 as much, because of the more serious tone. Some of my friends and I still discuss to this day the approach to 4, and why we appreciate the more serious tone, but also feel it’s still Uncharted at heart. And others explain why they didn’t like it, which is always an interesting and enjoyable conversation to have with them. I personally wanted the more serious tone to happen after Uncharted 2, and was letdown with the 3rd game (weakest in the story department for me) but overall, still enjoyed the game very much so. And with 4 bringing in that more serious tone I felt like they were finally showing a level of growth in these characters that was missing. I mean, we saw growth from them all throughout the series, but it just felt all the more real, personable and stronger with 4, because of the more serious tone.

[boing1]

I'm glad they didn't. It would totally break the flow.

[SullysCigar]

Same. Maybe have it as an option on the hardest setting, but that would be a lot of work for a small portion of gamers.

Other than the flow of gameplay, I think it would've been really frustrating. Imagine being stuck on a ledge, waiting for the headshot, lining it up and just as you pull the trigger Nate runs out of grip and falls to his death!

Controllers are just too expensive for this feature to exist lol

[ClayRules2012]

“Imagine being stuck on a ledge, waiting for the headshot, lining it up and just as you pull the trigger Nate runs out of grip and falls to his death!” 😂I imagined this happening, and me saying “What the F Naughty Dog! This Stamina crap isn’t fun, it’s F pissing me off” only to then admire the work they did put into for the visuals haha.

But yeah, controllers are to expensive for this to exist. I mean, Days Gone and the losing gas was neat (more so in theory) than to experience driving away from a horde, humans etc, only to you don’t get far because the gas tank is empty. So, than to try and run on foot, but no Flipping way, because your enemies surround you now, just accept the fate given to you, DEATH awaits😭

[gamerz]

I remember when playing 4 for the first time thinking how cool the improvements to climbing were from 3. Am playing LL now and thinking the climbing while cool isn't really as much fun as it used to be. Just a sign of games getting better.

[P_Bomb]

I don’t want Drake falling off mid monkey bars.

[TheEnigma313]

Yeah it was for the best. Uncharted is based on suspension of disbelief and a stamina bar would have messed it up.

[Metabeard]

Stamina bars are lame, I'm looking at you skyward sword... thanks for adding that and now its a thing forever. >_>

[MocBistro]

They should have