Uncharted 4 Story Changed "100 Percent" After New Directors Came On

The story for action-adventure game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End changed "100 percent" when Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley came aboard the project, Druckmann revealed in a new AP interview.

The game was originally in development under the direction of Amy Hennig and Justin Richmond, but they left the studio in early 2014. Though it was not confirmed, reports indicated Hennig was allegedly "forced out" by Druckmann and Straley, a point that the studio has denied.

Druckmann and Straley, who worked on the first Uncharted and its sequel before moving on to The Last of Us, were named co-directors of Uncharted 4 in June 2014, according to Game Informer.

No information was provided as to the specific changes Druckmann and Straley made to the Uncharted 4's story. However, Nathan Drake actor Nolan North shared some insight in an interview last year, saying a lot of work was thrown out after Hennig left Naughty Dog.

The development team "shot eight months of her story and it was all thrown away," he said. "Amy is still a very dear friend of mine and she's brilliant. But the Last of Us guys were the next team there, so they took over and they just wanted their own flavor. They got rid of some of the other people that were involved and just redid their thing."

North said Uncharted 4's overall tone is going to be "slightly different" than Hennig's vision.

"It has to be, you know," he said. "You can't have a Robert Ludlum novel that's going to be the same as Stephen King. It's just that they're different styles. But it's true to the story."

In the AP interview, Straley said Uncharted 4 is the "biggest, most ambitious" game Naughty Dog has ever made.

"We want to do this justice," he said. "We want it to be a mind-blowing, eye-popping, sweaty-palms adventure. Everybody is bleeding out of their eye sockets to make it come together. We want to make sure Drake is sent off properly."

Uncharted 4 is the final entry in the Uncharted series that Naughty Dog plans to develop (but not necessarily the final game in the series) and the last game to star Nathan Drake.

"It's time," Druckmann said. "Sometimes, a character just lets you know it's time to move on. For me, that was part of the intrigue of coming back to this world. You never see something successful in the industry end. It usually just fizzles out."

After multiple delays, Uncharted 4 launches exclusively for PS4 at the end of April.

Just this week, a thrilling new story trailer was released. It was great, but it had a problem, too--it used concept art from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Naughty Dog has since apologized for the "regrettable mistake" and released a new version of the video with the art in question removed.