2015 is going to usher in the next generation of gaming.  Games are finally going to be released exclusively for the new generation of consoles (Wii U, PS4, and Xbox One) without the burden of their last-gen counterparts holding back development.  This series will explore my most anticipated games of the coming months along with several reasons why these games have made me giddy with excitement in anticipation.  The first of these games is Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

The original Uncharted was one of the first games I got for my PS3 back in early 2007 and it still wows me everytime I play it.  The series as a whole, all the way through to Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, had been a wild ride and I can’t wait to play the fourth installation on a current generation console.  Take a look at the 15 minute gameplay demo released not too long ago at the Video Game Awards, it will blow your mind.  Okay, go watch it.  Have you watched it yet?  What are you waiting for?!  Okay seriously… watch it please.  Finished?  Think of how it made you feel regardless of whether you play games or not.  Let me explain to you why this gameplay is extremely promising.

1) The verticality-  look at how many planes there are to traverse when Drake is fighting the enemies towards the latter half of the video.  The other Uncharted games had some degree of verticality, but it was taken advantage of most during multiplayer, there were few sections where you could freely move between planes.  This is huge!

2) The enemies and their awareness- Artificial intelligence plays an important role in whether or not gamers enjoy games.  If we feel the game is too easy then we’ll get bored, if it’s hard without a good reason then we get turned off.  Previous Uncharted games followed a linear progression where you would go through predetermined areas in a specific order and eliminate the enemies in each area.  Sometimes you would enter an area and sneak through only to get caught and then are forced to kill, or most, of the enemies.  Also, once caught you could not really go back into hiding, or at least not in the way you can as seen in the 15 minute gameplay you just watched.  As gamers, we play games often to escape reality and take on the role of someone who’s life is created to be more interesting than our own; we live vicariously through our gameplay sessions and when those sessions are more realistic, it makes the whole experience that much more worth it.  Allowing the enemies to “lose” you and then try to find you but in a realistic way is extremely satisfying especially when they are doing so on different planes.

3) The graphics- This requires little explanation, as you could tell from the video that Uncharted definitely qualifies as one of the biggest pieces of eye candy in the gaming world.  Every Uncharted game has improved over its predecessor and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is no different.  Gamers might want good gameplay and story, but we also like to just appreciate the world that the developer’s spent years building; taking it in makes the experience worth the wait…it also lets us postpone the inevitable end of the game!

Have you learned anything from this post?  Are you a gamer that has their own opinion about this game?  Are you looking forward to Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End?  If you don’t play video games, did you connect what I was discussing in the article after having watched the video?  Critical game trailer analysis is a large part of video game websites nowadays since most news is focused on getting new information about the games to the consumer/gamer.  Trailers come out all the time and even non-gamplay trailers get attention, but trailers like this one are special because they give a preview much like an open house day in the real estate world.  Hope you all learned something about Uncharted 4 and thanks for reading!  Stay tuned for part II!