While Naughty Dog is busy working on its next game – Intergalactic – some fans of the studio’s Uncharted series have been wondering whether the first game in the franchise, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, will get a remake in the vein of The Last of Us Part 1. The original’s designer, Benson Russell, has now spoken about how a remake would be a waste of time and resources.
In an interview with FRVR, Russell spoke about how Uncharted doesn’t really need a remake, since its gameplay and visuals still hold up well today. Pointing to the remake of the original System Shock, he noted that it “makes a lot of sense because not just can you play it, but it had horrible key bindings, it kept a lot of people out from wanting to play it.” Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, on the other hand, is something Russell still considers to be “new” since its control scheme is pretty standard for third-person shooters even today.
This, along with the fact that PlayStation Plus subscribers can still play the original Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, makes Russell question, “What’s the point of remastering [or remaking] it?”
“I just don’t see the point of remaking [it],” he continued. “You’d have to rewrite the whole story to make it better, which means you’re going to change the spirit and you’re going to change the scenes and what the first one was about, right? You’re going to have to add all these scenes or take things away, and a lot of the key set pieces—are you going to keep those? Are you going to have to redo them because they don’t fit your story?”
Interestingly, Russell also believes that a remake of the original wouldn’t do much to introduce the franchise to a new game. Rather, he says that the studio should “take the lessons of Uncharted 4 and make a new game that’s in the past or wherever you need it to be.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. I honestly thought the same thing about The Last of Us Part 1… these are old games for a reason.” Russell also noted that a remake would feel “more like a cash grab than it would feel like anything necessary at this point.”
It is worth noting that, since the 2013 release of The Last of Us, Naughty Dog has released a remastered version of the game for PS4, and then a remake for PS5 and PC. Similarly, The Last of Us Part 2 also got a remaster. When it comes to Uncharted, however, the studio has only released two games throughout the 2010s – Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
While it might seem like Naughty Dog is ready to move past the Uncharted franchise, a report from earlier this year has indicated that the studio at one point “flirted with the idea” of making an Uncharted 5. According to Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, “there was some planning of an Uncharted 5 before COVID.”
In the meantime, Intergalactic is slated for release exclusively on PS5. It doesn’t yet have a release date, however.
