Amy Hennig’s Plan for Uncharted 4 was Quite Different

Uncharted 4, released in 2016, became one of Naughty Dog’s most acclaimed games, but a very different story was planned in the early years of development. Former Naughty Dog VFX artist Matt Radford revealed that he saw an early version prepared during Amy Hennig’s tenure, and that the Sam Drake character, in particular, was handled completely differently than in the final game. According to Radford, the plan at that time involved significant changes in terms of the story’s tone and character relationships.

In Uncharted 4, Sam Was Initially a Villain

According to Radford’s explanation, in the version prepared by Amy Hennig, Sam was still in the game, but he wasn’t Nathan Drake’s brother. Sam was designed as one of the villains of the story. This shows that the themes of brotherhood and reunion in the final version were initially much more conflictual.

The actor playing the character was also different. Initially, Todd Stashwick was chosen for Sam, but after Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog in 2014, the project was largely reshaped. Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley took over development, while Troy Baker took over the role of Sam, and significant parts of the story were rewritten.

Radford says the early version was also quite raw technically. One of the first promotional prototypes the team prepared ran at around 1 FPS on PC. Therefore, he notes that the version he saw was still in a very early stage of development and it’s not surprising that it differed significantly from the final game.

The former Naughty Dog employee emphasizes that he liked Amy Hennig’s idea but that Uncharted 4 was also quite successful. Therefore, he doesn’t say the first version would have been better. Nevertheless, this early plan, where Sam is the villain and the story takes a different direction, clearly shows how much of a transformation the fourth game in the series underwent during its development.

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