Uncharted 4's Real-Time Cutscenes Are "Profound," Dev Says

We've heard before how the power of the PlayStation 4 is making Uncharted 4: A Thief's End a better game. And now, lead designer Ricky Cambier has expanded further, saying the system's beefiness allowed the developer to make spaces that were not only larger, but also highly detailed.

He also said the game's user of real-time cutscenes--where there is a seamless transition between cutscene and gameplay--will be "kind of profound." This is a first for the series.

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"There have been games before that have done pretty big spaces," Cambier said in an interview with MCV. "We wanted to do it at a certain visual quality that wouldn't have ever been possible except on the PS4. We are able to give you this much room to explore and still offer that level of detail."

Previously, Naughty Dog said A Thief's End has 10 times the playable space of previous entries in the series.

On the subject of real-time cutscenes, A Thief's End is the first Naughty Dog game to use this approach--and he thinks it will have a major impact.

"Also, one of the things we are doing for the first time is that there are no pre-rendered cut scenes," he explained. "In the past, we always went over to a black frame and we switch over into a movie. We don't do that anymore. That was a limitation we sort of accepted back then.

"The impact of removing that has been kind of profound. You just seamlessly go into these cut scenes and then come out of them--that whole transition goes away."

The full MCV interview is filled with many more details and stories about the development of A Thief's End. Go read it here.

After multiple delays, A Thief's End is now due to launch on May 10 for PlayStation 4. It's the final game that Naughty Dog plans to make, but not necessarily the last game in the series. In fact, creative director Neil Druckmann said he would be happy to see another studio make Uncharted 5.

For lots more on A Thief's End, you can check out GameSpot's recent hands-on preview, "How The Last of Us Made Uncharted 4 a Better Game."

You can also check out GameSpot's interview with Druckmann, writer Josh Scherr, and Cambier. In the interview, the developers talk about saying goodbye to Nathan Drake and the Uncharted series, A Thief's End's stealth elements, and a lot more.