UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves – New Details and Coverage Roundup

Earlier this week we hosted a small, dare I say, intimate, media event here at the Naughty Dog studios to show a few more journalists what we’ve done so far on UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves and where we are planning on taking it by the time our game is released later this year. This is only the third group of press who has seen our game in action since we first offered a sneak peek only a few months ago. This group of guests included writers from 1UP, G4, GameSpot, GameSpy, GameTrailers, IGN, Joystiq, Kotaku, and UGO.

The very full day for our guests started off with getting them up to speed on UNCHARTED 2, covering background info on story, gameplay and technology such as:

• The historical mystery surrounding Marco Polo and his lost fleet, which serves as the foundation for our story.
• What’s happened to Drake, since it’s pretty obvious he’s a bit scruffier, down on his luck and he’s definitely running with way shadier people than before.
• Introducing everyone to Chloe Frazer, a sexy and impulsive Australian who is just this side of unpredictable and dangerous, not to mention Drake’s new partner and romantic interest – can you blame him?
• Adding in what we’re calling “action-stealth” to give you the choice to go in guns blazing or take out a few adversaries unnoticed before engaging the rest of them.
• Blending together our climbing and shooting into what we call “traversal gunplay” so you can now be in gun combat in the middle of climbing, swinging on a rope, hanging from a ledge or sign…you can shoot pretty much from anywhere, anytime you want.
• All the cool things the Naughty Dog Engine 2.0 can do now, like pushing way more polygons than before, an overhaul of lighting and shadowing, complex enemy A.I., snow shaders and subsurface scattering, fur shading, new physics engine, audio obstruction occlusion…the list goes on and on and on.

And that’s just scratching the surface of it all.

After all that, we gave our guests a gameplay demo that was followed with a cut scene introducing Chloe, all of which takes place in a fictional war-torn city in Nepal. We also gave everyone who came to our studio something no one else has witnessed yet – playing back our Spike Video Game Awards trailer in real-time entirely within our engine.

Check out all the links below to see firsthand accounts and impressions from all of the online sites who came to our studio to see UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves. We also captured a new screenshot that we wanted to share just with you.

• G4 TV – First Look: ‘Uncharted 2: Among Thieves’
• 1UP – Uncharted 2 Among Thieves Preview for the PS3
• GameSpot – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves First Look
• GameSpot – GameSpot Video: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Interview
• GameSpy – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Preview
• Game Trailers – BloodworthGT’s GamePad – Uncharted 2 Mega Blog
• Game Trailers – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Director Interview Part 1 HD
• Game Trailers – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Director Interview Part 2 HD
• IGN – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves First Look
• Joystiq – Joystiq impressions: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Joystiq – Joystiq interview: Talking Uncharted 2 with Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells
• Kotaku – First Look At Uncharted 2: Among Thieves In Action
• Kotaku – Uncharted 2 Director Talks Drake
• UGO – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Preview

We’re really excited to show as much of our game as possible. It’s going to be hard to hold back so we don’t give it all away, but I would definitely expect lots more info, screens and, yes, even video of gameplay, to come as we quickly approach our Fall 2009 release date.