Naughty Dog explain Uncharted 3's lack of main campaign co-op

19 Oct 2011 at 16:47:59 by John Robertson

"It makes it hard to tell a serious story," says game's lead director.

If you're someone that likes to up with the world of videogames (seeing as you're reading this, we assume you are) then you'll be well aware that in recent years it has become rather fashionable for developers to include co-op.

Gears of War, Halo and Resident Evil all added it, while the likes of Army of Two and Rock Band have been built around it. Not everyone, however, is prepared to follow the crowd.

IncGamers recently caught up with Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception game director, Justin Richmond, to talk about why Naughty Dog haven't gone down the 'buddy' route.

Here's what he had to say on the matter:

"The reason we haven’t included [co-op] so far is that, as far as the story is concerned, we want to be with Drake all of the time. We want to tell Drake’s story and we want to make players feel a certain way."

Richmond also said that co-op brings a different feel to the game. Despite that, though, it's not something he's ruling out for future titles.

"Co-op, in general, tends to mess that up; it gives a totally different vibe. You know, it’s hard to tell a serious story when some other player is constantly chucking grenades at your feet. We’ve always had a story to tell and a way that we want to tell it. [Co-op] is something that I’m personally interested, and we’re not ruling it out for the future, but for these games so far we haven’t really wanted to do it."

Look out for out full review of Uncharted 3 in the very near future. 

Our full interview with Justin Richmond will be published in two sections. One section will run alongside the review, while the second part will run after the game has been released. 

The reason for splitting it into two is that many of the design elements Justin discusses with us give away story details that may act as spoilers. We recommened you bookmark this page and return a few days after the game has been released - we will add a link to our full article when it's published.

Our review of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception can be found here.

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