After much delay, game developer Naughty Dog has released on May 10 exclusively on the PlayStation 4 its open-world action-adventure third-person shooter video game “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.”
Less than one week after its official release, the game was generating mostly positive reviews from game critics, with most of them lauding Naughty Dog for finally giving the franchise a rightful pace that seemed to have been missing during its first three iterations.
One reputable gaming critic Casey Newton even posted on his Twitter account on May 15 that after all the delays that the game has been subjected to for several times in the past, “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” proved to be quite phenomenal.
He lauded the efforts of Naughty Dog for giving the game so many more character moments and much less mindless shootings, which were very prevalent in both “Uncharted 2” and “Uncharted 3.”
Easy to be patient with ‘Uncharted 4’
One gamer even detailed that he completed “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” in just under 13 hours spread across four sessions, details The Verge.
He said that while he is not the type of person to have the patience of playing or watching TV for long hours, “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” made it so easy for him because Naughty Dog has indeed crafted a gorgeous and fantastically remarkable end to the saga of Nathan Drake. He attributed the success of the game to its pacing.
The critic said that the focus of “Uncharted 4” is far more heavily weighted toward exploration and platforming levels, with a character along for the ride to help tell the story that the gamer plays.
“Uncharted 4” also has the best combat ever seen in the series. Most encounters take place in spaces with a clever design filled with nooks and crannies to exploit and there is little of the magical reinforcement that artificially extended the previous games’ running times.
The game is still as big as it gets in terms of video game development but its single-player adventure feels increasingly anachronistic.
Making the game easy for gamers with disabilities
Another thing that Naughty Dog has been highly commended and praised for with “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” is its extensive set of accessibility features which is incredibly important to gamers with certain disabilities, reports Kotaku.
Apparently, the accessibility features in the game were discussed heavily by Naughty Dog UI designer Alexandria Neonakis during the Games Development Conference last year.
Neonakis was actually interviewed by Josh Straub, editor-in-chief of D.A.G.E.R., which stands for Disabled Accessibility for Gaming Entertainment Rating. D.A.G.E.R. is a metric system used by Straub to review games from the perspective of someone who is disabled.
The conversation was not meant to radically alter the design of “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” but only to provide additional options for the player so that they can navigate what’s there.
And to that end, lead game designer Emilia Schatz began looking at different ways to make the game playable while using the only one of the analog sticks.
While the changes made on “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” were relatively small, those are nonetheless important.
In fact, Straub described the game as a barrier-free and an absolute joy to play with and a must buy for anyone who owns a PlayStation 4 regardless of physical ability.
The disabled gaming critic said that when he turns on a game like “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End,” he does not feel being confined to a wheelchair because he turns into someone who is a swashbuckling never-do-well treasure hunter like Nathan Drake.
He added that the brief period of escape is why accessibility to the video game is so crucial because the more games that offer such features, the more people with disabilities will be able to escape and have better lives, says Straub.
Before the launching of the game this month, Naughty Dog joined the PAX East event on April 23 – 24, and gave anxiously awaiting fans of “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” with a weekend treat by making a new multiplayer mode on the game playable in the PlayStation booth at the event all weekend.