Naughty Dog’s Justin Richmond Regrets The Killing Of [REDACTED] In Uncharted 2

Before the launch of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception I interviewed Justin Richmond, game director at Naughty Dog Studios where he talked about his reaction to seeing the video of Harrison Ford playing Uncharted 3 and the items the studio has hidden in the game.

SPOILER WARNING: Even though Uncharted 2: Among Thieves came out in 2009, we appreciate that some people don’t want to read plot spoilers so stop reading now and enjoy the rest of The Average Gamer.

I asked Richmond if, as a studio, they found it hard killing off characters in the Uncharted games. He replied “I wish we hadn’t killed [Harry] Flynn. I loved Flynn. He’s one of my favourite characters in the series but sometimes people gotta go. Unfortunately.” Flynn was an old colleague of Drake’s, who betrayed him in the second game.

Richmond went on to say “Yeah, it’s tricky. Although it’s funny you should say that because Lazarevic [killed off in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune] who’s played by Graeme McTavish plays Cutter in this game. So they manage to come back to life in a different form. Robin [Atkin Downes] who played Novaro in the first game and Tenzin in the second game is Talbot in this game. So even though we kill them off they definitely come back.”

I called Uncharted 3 a technical and cinematic masterpiece in my review. Richmond admitted that “The cruise ship is the most technical thing we’ve ever done as a company. We have a procedurally generated ocean which means the computer is generating the waves dynamically every single time and that’s driving the animation of the cruise ship and then Drake’s animating on top of that, stumbling around and all kinds of stuff.”

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is out now on PlayStation 3.