Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, officially unveiled last week at the Spike TV Video Game Awards then demonstrated live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, sends treasure hunting action hero Nathan Drake to the desert. Drake and his partner, Victor Sullivan (featured more prominently in the first Uncharted), will ultimately find themselves in Arabia’s Rub’ al-Khali desert, following the footsteps of T.E. Lawrence in search of their prize in the Atlantis of the Sands, alternatively known as the city of Ubar, Iram of the Pillars, and the City of Brass.
Deception’s exploration of the Rub’ al-Khali will feature “sand in all of its forms, drifting, blowing over the dunes, the displacement of sand, how it flows, sandstorms, mirages, heat haze—all that you would find in the desert,” say its creators.
“Of course, we’re not doing a whole game in the desert,” says the game’s director. “That’s our ultimate destination.”
Along the way, they’ll face “a shadowy clandestine organization and the occult treachery of its cunning and ruthless leader,” according to Uncharted 3’s official description, story details Naughty Dog did not touch upon during our demo.
During our eyes-on preview of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception in Hollywood, we saw nothing of Drake and Sully’s desert trekking adventures. Instead, we saw what leads up to those later-game events, learning what Naughty Dog wants to improve upon with the third Uncharted game for the PlayStation 3.
Priority one, according to the Santa Monica based developer, was to improve upon what Naughty Dog calls the Interactive Cinematic Experience.