As with many video games, Uncharted 4 has its fair share of hacks and developer tricks. But because of Naughty Dog’s polished presentation, many wouldn’t even know these existed. Boundary Break, the popular show of YouTuber Shesez, is famous for digging deep into the levels of our favourite games. Shesez decouples the camera from its intended position, and explores areas of the game the original creators didn’t intend for anyone to see. The series often reveals common, and sometimes weird development tricks developers utilise for optimisation or to save time, and there are always pleasant reveals and other surprises.
The show’s latest episode is all about Uncharted 4. Of its many, many interesting reveals, we learn that Naughty Dog didn’t emulate the original Crash Bandicoot for that scene, but instead actually created the level seen on the in-game TV using its own engine - including the classic PlayStation logo. Clipping through the TV reveals that Naughty Dog only spent time on what players would be able to see, such as the score screen and anything in the critical path from the game’s fixed camera angle. The rest of the demo was very much smoke and mirrors. There are also a couple of interesting cases of sound banks, which is when developers create objects to specifically broadcast certain sounds, used for ambience or to direct the player’s attention to a certain spot. The game’s orphanage level has one, and there’s another room with ghost guns shooting at a wall in the prison escape scene, to create the illusion of shootouts in the hallways. You can watch the full video above. Thanks, Kotaku.
