UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss Opens The Black Market

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UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss Opens The Black Market

As we get closer to the launch of PS Vita and UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss, the team at Bend Studios is getting amped! We’ve been working on this game for a long, long time, from early brainstorming sessions on the PS Vita beginning in 2008, through the production phase that wrapped up at the end of 2011. When given the opportunity to create a launch title for PlayStation’s new next-gen handheld, we jumped at the chance. When asked what game we’d like to make, we said UNCHARTED! Here’s why.


UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss Opens The Black Market

From the beginning, our goal was to create a great UNCHARTED game. We wanted to give players, including ourselves, more of what they love, but with the PS Vita’s unique spin. The cinematic experience, the gunplay and weapons, the compelling story and characters, the mystery and treasure hunting based on real history, the puzzles, the platforming, and of course, the colorful and detailed imagery… it’s all there. But it’s on a gorgeous five-inch screen that you can take with you.

If you’ve been following all the pre-release news, then you know that UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss also has a ton of collectibles — more than 300, in fact. We wanted to not only give the game some replayability with some additional exploration, but also to tell more backstory, which we do through the items you collect, locations you photograph, and other puzzles you solve. All of these are tied to Trophies that can be earned. We didn’t forget the gamer who prefers gunplay, either: one of the collectible types in UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss are the Bounties. These drop randomly from fallen enemies throughout the game and represent things that might have been found in the area you’re fighting in: old Spanish playing cards, gold and silver coins, and so forth. Many of these items are scarce, and some are really rare. You’re not going to collect all these on a single playthrough!

UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss -- Black Market

But we’re not cruel. To make it a little easier to collect all the Bounties, we created The Black Market. This is a near application that allows you select a Bounty type from your collection and send a request out to the Black Market. If any other PS Vita players out there (in the area where you made the request) have a Bounty that you’re missing, the Black Market will send you a copy of their Bounty, even the rarest collectibles. We even created a sixth Bounty type that you can obtain only through near: if you send a request to the Black Market and no one has what you need, the Black Market will send you a carved Fetish for you troubles. While the five bounties are tied to Trophies, the Fetishes are not… so you don’t have to use near to achieve Platinum. But for those of you who want to try a little Black Market trading, take your PS Vita with you!

PS Vita’s launch is right around the corner. We can’t wait!

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65 Comments

5 Author Replies

  • Mr. Garvin you are an awesome Creative Developer for portable gaming. I will pick up this game for sure, even though multiplayer was lacking.

  • This will be my first game, looks awesome, thanks guys!

  • @erza_scarlet. please show me where I said I felt bad if you dont play it? I said its stupid because of a trophy. I don’t care what you do, but it’s moronic to not to play a game of uncharted’s calibre because you thought you could not geta trophy. How do you even enjoy games with that attitude? LMAO. Play game to enjoy the gameplay, story trophies are stupid and useless.

  • Man so much overreaction. I feel bad for John, lol.

  • Also, I never did play UC for the multiplayer so it’s not a big deal for me. It’s all about the story!

  • I’m getting this for the story and gameplay first, and the trophies second. I appreciate them keeping the trophy requirements offline, and I also appreciate them not forcing MP into this. I, for one, haven’t touched the MP from UC2 or UC3 since I got the attached trophies required for the plats. However, I’ve played through all three games multiple times just to enjoy the stories, even after platting them. I plan to do the same with this one.

  • Epic inclusion indeed. I’ve pre-ordered this game already and can’t wait for 22nd to come quicker.

    ONLINE MULTIPLAYER mode similar to UC2/3 would have made this the Game of the Year in my book though.

    Is there a Possibility of including ONLINE MULTIPLAYER mode through a PATCH??? That would make my day. Thank you BEND Studios.

  • Thank you for not including multiplayer, it’s a waste of resources and I am glad that there is a game out that I can plat on my own without relying on random people from the internet to complete.

    So far my only gripe is the forced touch/gyro controls. I was disappointed that Bend forced that after saying before that you could choose not to use the gimmick controls.

    Stuff seems like a good idea but um ever rode the subway for an hour? Yeah motion controls are not going to be your friend when you are basically swaying back and forth the entire time with people essentially sitting on your shoulders…it erm kinda makes the portable gaming notion well, not so portable.

  • Well that’s good and all but they should’ve released it earlier. I just collected all my treasures, bounties and other collectibles last week. All that is left now is to finish crushing to get my platinum.

  • I’ve been trying to use the Black Market but every time I go to Near and then go back to the Black Market to get trades the game locks up and shuts off my PSVita. I can replicate the issue each and every time. Anyone have an idea why this happens? Is it a bug that is being worked on? Has anyone had this issue?

  • I have this game and it says the online is disabled. But I have found things in Near from people near me. Why is mine not working?

  • i have not been able to figure out how this black market thing works… i also think that this would be better if near allowed you to update more than once every hour.

  • @ Sniffynose:

    you don’t have to use the touch controls.

  • so, i just got the platinum for this game. out of the 141 bounty collectables, 4… that’s right, only *4*were obtained through the black market. the rest were obtained (over an extra 20 hours) by restarting checkpoint after checkpoint.

    and i’ve yet to even see a single one of the fetishes that are supposed to be awarded if the black market didn’t have what i needed (note: i refreshed near constantly, too).

    so either i didn’t understand how the black market worked or this is just implemented rather poorly.

    great game, but having to spend all of that extra time obtaining random drop items made it a little *too* tedious in the end.

    ok, i’ll stop crying now…

  • I was enjoying the core aspects of UGA…navigating through gorgeous environments, a bit of gunplay and some light puzzles. But the touch screen implementation is forced and gimmicky. the “tilt your vita” mini game is lame and the end boss battles are some of the most annoying I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing through.

    The collectibles. Since when did 300 collectibles deserve bragging rights? Randomly generated collectibles? Really? After collecting the charcoal drawings, the turquoise, the jade, the artifacts, the photos, the deities… It screams of tedious, poor game design and inflated replay value especially for a PORTABLE action adventure game. I used to be a big Uncharted fan. But Golden Abyss has so many nagging problems that this may be the last version I ever buy. Thanks Bend

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