Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Interview, Part One

AH: I've talked to other people about this, about storytelling in games and how we go about it, or how we ought to. I don't think there's one right way of course, but the thing I'm always surprised about is, there's certain things that are obvious about telling stories in other media, like if you're writing a screenplay or film or whatever, and yet these things get ignored in games all the time.

It's pretty darned hard to tell a story about a character when there aren't any other characters surrounding them. That's how we're challenged. That's where the conflict comes from. Otherwise the conflict's completely externalized, and of course that's what video games are about, right A lot of it's the externalized conflict. But that's equally why they're so shallow. And that's fine, I mean you're defeating obstacles and such, but there's no why for the what. There's no emotional challenge, no emotional conflict, because you don't get that when you're this lone protagonist.

We immediately knew that if were going to make a game that felt more like playing a movie, we needed to surround the protagonist with a cast of characters. We did that in the first one as well, but we wanted to up the ante in Uncharted 2, so that it felt like--not only having a cast of characters you cared about, or got to see some reaction to, but having characters that challenge you more, or pull you in different directions. So yes, the story's absolutely about Nathan Drake, but there's all these satellites around him now. The fact that he has relationships with all these different people says different things about him, and then when they come into his life and there's conflict and crises, the way he reacts and the way they react in terms of which directions he's pulled says even more about him and creates the tension that makes the game interesting.

I think that's what's missing from games. You don't really care what's going on as long as it's viscerally exciting, but there's no emotional reason behind what you're doing. You have to have both, as far as I'm concerned.

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