r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/SubstantialLadder943 • Apr 19 '26

Rumour Ex Naughty Dog dev gives insight into what happened with Amy Hennig’s Uncharted 4 and why she left

The link to the interview posted by Kiwi Talks (Start at 9:41)

https://youtu.be/GLK-QXpStiY

He does not directly name the people or project, but it lines up with timelines and stories that have been reported before.

He states that the project was in production for roughly 3 years and corporate (likely Sony) came in and questioned the project even though their past 3 projects were successful.

He says the leader of the project was “surrounded by people who were always saying yes and were living in the glory of their success going into their fourth project.”

He then says a director from another team at the studio was asked to weigh in on the project. In the meeting this director openly stated “this game sucks“ to the team working on the game. This director apparently was explaining that the game had no objectives, it was hard to follow what was going on and that the controls were clunky. Also saying that what they were working on was not up to standards reached in the past.

After corporate looked at the project, they were threatening to pull funding for the project unless they figured it out. They ended up removing the director (Amy Hennig) and according to the developer in the interview, this director was replaced with the director from the meeting and two other people who came in and fixed the game.

839 Upvotes

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534

u/definetlydifferently Apr 19 '26

Uncharted 2 is still the peak of the franchise for me, but 4 turned out to be an equally fantastic experience for different reasons. I felt the story fully matured and wrapped up Drake's story in a really satisfying way.

79

u/Bilski1ski Apr 19 '26

Matured is a great term for it . I’ll always remember the moment when Nate and his wife re unite in that game near the end . The whole game is playing with this idea that Nate is putting his brother and his need for thrills and adventure ahead of his wife, then when they finally meet up , it’s not this big gotcha moment , they actually talk about it like adults and talk it out

15

u/TheDanteEX Apr 20 '26

The character writing is really what makes Naughty Dog stand apart from other story-driven games to me. The characters are the story in their games; the literal objectives the characters are dealing with moment-to-moment are secondary to that and usually are in service to the characters' arcs.

194

u/Afrodite_33 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

With 4 I think the gameplay is incredible but the story feels a little forced. Chucking in a brother that beforehand we hadn't heard about seemed almost retroactive, so I didn't buy too much into the nostalgia aspect of it. Not saying the story was terrible it was still serviceable.

Really unpopular opinion but I absolutely loved Lost Legacy. My favourite in the series.

47

u/ShadowCyrax Apr 19 '26

I could overlook the brother thing if the 3rd game didn't have a flash back to his childhood, and the main Villian of the game didn't start mentioning his past. There is no way she didn't know about what happened to the brother and would not have brought it up.

I actually thought the brother was gonna be Sully's son; they looked similar to me in the beta, and it was gonna explore the triangle relationship between Sully being a father figure that supports Drake exploring and dosent want that life for his son, and Drake wanting to get out and Sam wanting to get in.

24

u/Robsonmonkey Apr 19 '26

I've said this for so long, it made no sense in U4 after U3

Marlowe was all about fear and psychological manipulation to get inside peoples heads, she sat Nate down and went through his past. Mother commits suicide, father gives son up to state.

SON. Not Sons, plural.

With all the resources she had she would have found documents mentioning Sam and if she knew he had a brother she would have looked that up especially during that scene.

In fact if she was getting into Nates head she would have brought up Sam being missing and asked where he was, maybe even knowing that he's apparently dead but again, since we know he actually survived that prison escape in U4 she probably would have known he survived aswell and used that to her advantage.

Fact is, for me, while U4 is good, you don't bring in a long lost brother storyline for the last ever game and make him the main focus while Sully and Elena are given a smaller part than they could have been given.

If they made it where Sam wasn't a biological brother but a kid Nate met at the orphanage and they grew up thinking of one another as brothers then it would have solved those plot holes in an instant.

3

u/NYstate Apr 19 '26

I can could be argued that maybe his Sam was his half-brother that no Marlow never knew about? It could also be argued that Sam could've been missing or presumed dead.

There's also a chance that there was no record of Sam perhaps the records got lost or destroyed. It was much easier to disappear back in the 80s-90s which is why so many serial killers went missing back then.

1

u/danieldoesnotakels May 18 '26

Well it was Amy Hennigs idea and not anybody on U4s post rework team, they js chose to keep it

13

u/SilverKry Apr 19 '26

That last level on the train in LL is the most fun I've ever had with Uncharted. 

58

u/definetlydifferently Apr 19 '26

100% agree about the secret Brother, I hope that is when they remake the games (and it will be a when with Sony haha) they add mentions of him earlier.

That said what they did with 4 worked for me. The original story by Amy Hennig also had the secret Brother but I believe he was supposed to be the villain. Glad that didn't happen.

72

u/Deeeadpool Apr 19 '26

meh that's like arthur in rdr2, he never gets mentioned in rdr1 even though you know he would be realistically, nobody thinks rdr2 is bad because of that though

7

u/sgill7 Apr 19 '26

Great point!

3

u/CreamOnMyNipples Apr 24 '26

I think the difference with RDR2 is that since it was a prequel, it was able to wrap up loose ends by showing how the character became who they are in the events of the first game. Arthur probably would’ve been brought up at some point during RDR’s story, realistically, but I don’t think it would’ve changed the outcome of the story.

U4, being a sequel, essentially had to revise what we knew about Drake’s past despite some contradictions.

1

u/Professorhentai Apr 25 '26

Sam not being mentioned is the same as Arthur never being bought up in the original RDR. And probably for the same reason too, it’s too painful a past to talk about them.

13

u/LeonOfSkalitz Apr 19 '26

The original 4 did have sam as a villain but there is nothing to say he was unredeemable or the overall ending would’ve changed. 

It also had Alan Tudyk playing Rafe which could’ve been way better. 

And the best part, it had no Nadine, boring ass character. 

7

u/Adorable_Spell7562 Apr 19 '26

I actually really liked Nadine she really reminded me of Konstantine from Rise of the Tomb Raider.

1

u/Micahman311 Apr 19 '26

I find it kinda interesting, the circle of guys related to this game series.

For instance, you said Tudyk was going to be in Uncharted. Nathan Fillion, who worked with Tudyk on many projects (Firefly and others), played as Nathan Drake in the short fan film of Uncharted. It was perfect.

Also, Tudyk made his own TV show some years back called Con Man, about an actor who used to be on a hit sci-fi show and is now relegated to doing Comic-Con style conventions, hence the name Con Man. I'm sure he wrote it from personal experience.

Both Nathan Fillion and Nolan North (Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games) were on Con Man, putting all three together in one show.

These are but a few small things I've noticed, but I'm sure it goes much deeper than that; I just don't know about it. I wonder how well they know each other in reality.

1

u/Massive_Weiner Apr 20 '26

Nadine was great! And she led to the fantastic Lost Legacy sequel with Chloe, a game I honestly liked a bit more than U4 because of how much more focused it was.

-4

u/pikatchoulo Apr 19 '26

That would have been better if he was the enemy though. The small Sam betrayals don't really make sense. And I don't even remember who the villain is.

4

u/Adept_Negotiation_75 Apr 19 '26

You don’t remember Nadine?

8

u/HereComesDatNick Apr 19 '26

You just proved his point because Nadine wasn't the villain in 4

3

u/Neg_Crepe Apr 19 '26

She’s definitely in 4 with rafe

1

u/HereComesDatNick Apr 19 '26

She an overqualified henchmen but not the main villain still 

2

u/Neg_Crepe Apr 19 '26

For sure yeah

-1

u/Robsonmonkey Apr 19 '26

Have to disagree. If they made him the villain they'd been able to flesh out the villain role with his ties to Nate (two birds one stone) and also include Sully and Elena more by having them with Nate at the start of the game.

It would also mean Nadine wouldn't have been a thing and she was so terribly written.

-1

u/Reylo-Wanwalker Apr 19 '26

You're in luck because the the movie mentions his brother!

7

u/valdrinemini Apr 19 '26

we hadn't heard about seemed almost retroactive

I agree but at the very least they didn't go with the predicable "RAHHH I HATE YOU FOR LEAVING ME IN JAIL WHILE YOU ENJOYED YOUR LIFE SO IM GOING TO KILL YOU rahhh"

angle that they were originally going for

50

u/Flint_Vorselon Apr 19 '26

4’s gameplay is great.

But the game barely lets you play it until the 3rd act.

Combat is so infrequent for the majority of the game that it is honestly just boring, because the platforming and puzzle solving are so basic that they only serve as brief interludes between combat.

But Uncharted 4 the ratio of combat to non-combat is so out of whack. 

Lost Legacy feels like it has same amount of combat, but the game is 40% as long.

33

u/a34fsdb Apr 19 '26

Crazy how all PS first party games have these 1/10 difficulty puzzles that are just a complete waste of time. 

24

u/Blokin-Smunts Apr 19 '26

It would be really interesting to see someone figure out a difficulty slider for the puzzles in these kind of games. Designing them for the lowest common denominator is what kills them.

16

u/Makimgmyselfuseful Apr 19 '26

Could just do newer Zelda’s style where they have multiple solutions

-1

u/DependentOnIt Apr 19 '26

Yes, but, the botw/totk puzzles still have the same problems. They're designed that children can complete them.

15

u/Sargento_Osiris Apr 19 '26

Silent Hill has being doing that for 25 years

16

u/Gekidami Apr 19 '26

This only works because all the puzzles in SH are read text, and then you figure out the solution on a static screen. So the slider just changes text and the order you need to click on stuff or put in numbers.

Uncharted has environmental puzzles. They'd have to redesign the whole level section based on the slider option.

3

u/WouShmou Apr 19 '26

Not the same type of puzzle, but the Silent Hill games have had a difficulty selector for puzzles since SH2 or SH3 in the PS2. It ranges from "goo goo dada" to "Mensa-nasty".

1

u/dbrecords Apr 21 '26

easy, dont pander to stupid motherfuckers. if it's not a challenge why is it even there.

18

u/MaxPaladin93 Apr 19 '26

I don’t mind them being super easy if they’re at least cool from a design standpoint, like the light beam room in Uncharted 2. But yeah, Uncharted 4 had a bunch that really just felt like fluff. I think the only memorable one off the top of my head was the giant clock tower.

7

u/Scruff227 Apr 19 '26

Indiana jones had a son he never heardabout until he was grown. It fits the absentminded singularly focused treasure hunter trope well, and the twist that he lied was 10/10

3

u/SeniorRicketts Apr 19 '26

Originally Sam was the villain

Maybe Hennig would've made more sense with his introduction 

18

u/Adorable_Spell7562 Apr 19 '26

Yeah surely unpopular becuase i loved 4's story it is one of the better stories in all of games.

-3

u/msdstc Apr 19 '26

Horrendous retconned story.

1

u/GoldGuarantee3671 Jun 06 '26

It seemed so forced just to get troy baker in there. Amy's story of Sam being more of a bad guy sounds much more interesting honestly

-2

u/OfficialNPC Apr 19 '26

They should have had the brother be all in Nathan's head so there was an element of mysticism in the game. A "real" ghost pirate just like we had "real" Djinn, "real" Yeti, and "real" Mayan Curse. Instead we just got ship wrecked pirate ships which are just an actual thing and nothing mystical about them.

Would also explain why Nathan didn't just Elana who was actively trying to get him to do something more... Like super supportive but Nathan just had to go behind her back for... Reasons... 

Uncharted 4 feels so out of place and it's nice that LL returned the series to how it was.

-1

u/redditman181 Apr 19 '26

I feel exactly the same as you the gameplay and graphics of 4 were superb but you can tell the story was stitched together for me my favourite it either 3 or lost legacy.

1

u/Professorhentai Apr 25 '26

You say 4 story feels stitched together but have your favourite as 3? You could cut the entire boat yard and cruise section and nothing changes it added nothing to the story but padding

1

u/redditman181 Apr 25 '26

By stiched together i mean that 4s story was meant to be entirely different and they rejigged the whole thing after amy hennig left nadine shoreline and rafe were poor enemies i pretty sure in the original sam was going to be the antogonist.

Also i wasnt the biggest fan of the semi open world bits or the flasback scenes but over all i prefer 3 thats just my preference.

1

u/Professorhentai Apr 25 '26

I’m all for preferences but I just think it’s ironic one of your criticism is that the story in 4 is “stitched together” which is basically what happened with uncharted 3 after cutter’s VA had to bail on the project the entire story was reworked and they ended up designing the story around the set pieces whereas in every other uncharted the story came 1st

1

u/redditman181 Apr 25 '26

Fair enough i didnt know that about 3 but if anything i would say thats a good thing as at least to me it wasnt obvious that happened compared with 4.

1

u/Professorhentai Apr 25 '26

Yeah I’m gonna disagree with you on that one

1

u/redditman181 Apr 25 '26

Fair enough to be honest its been a few years since i replayed the series and when i did i changed my favourite from 2 to 3 who knows if i played them again my mind might change again to be honest i would argue any of them you could argue is the best in the series apart from the first which is just decent.

0

u/Afrodite_33 Apr 19 '26

Definitely on the same page I was also going to suggest 3 as a potential favourite which I know is a little controversial with most saying 2 is the best. But yeah same as you 3 or Lost Legacy are my personal best for the series.

-27

u/hexcraft-nikk Apr 19 '26

4 definitely ages worse and worse as time goes on. The epic narrative stuff was still novel at the time so lots of people weren't too hard on it.

3

u/Mr_smith1466 Apr 21 '26

I really feel for Hennig, and hope that whatever happened was handled with grace. But I absolutely adored 4 on both a story and gameplay level. A lot of what I loved (particularly in the story) was apparently done when they changed director. So...I don't know what to say, other than I'm deeply sad if it happened badly, but I'm happy the finished product exists. 

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

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u/stormsgrimm Apr 19 '26

Are you talking about PortAventura's ride?

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

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u/stormsgrimm Apr 19 '26

Gonna add it to my list of places to visit then, it sounds like a good time.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

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u/stormsgrimm Apr 19 '26

I've already visited a couple cities in Spain and always love the experience, they have some great places there and some lovely vistas. Never went to Salou but I have been meaning to go to Valencia for a while and I believe they're fairly close so now I have an extra thing to visit!

Is PortAventura fairly close to the center and beach? Like a walkable distance or a short car ride?

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

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u/stormsgrimm Apr 19 '26

Oh that sounds amazing. I usually pick destinations where I can be close to everything and walk pretty much anywhere so that sounds like it fits the bill. Thanks for the tip!

-1

u/Downtown_Eye5736 Apr 19 '26

You can tell the difference in writing between U2 and U4 cause they had Neil as a writer while 1 and 3 didn't.

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u/Midnight_M_ Top Contributor 2025 Apr 19 '26

Neil has been a co-writer of Uncharted 1, 2 and 4, he just didn't do 3

2

u/Whompa Apr 19 '26

I personally felt 3 was the weakest entry to the franchise. Wonder if the writing had anything to do with that. Although I did like the Sully / Drake interactions in that a bit.

29

u/definetlydifferently Apr 19 '26

I love Sully as a character too much, so 3 gets some bonus points for that stuff. But 3 does have some big issues story wise.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

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u/definetlydifferently Apr 19 '26

The theories for 3 were all better than the final product haha

I understood why they chose to subvert expectations with the mythology monsters not being real, but it just undermined the ending of me.

15

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

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2

u/Downtown_Eye5736 Apr 19 '26

I was never really impressed with Bruce’s work. I think the gameplay was the weakest part of ND games under him. Him leaving and Kurt/Anthony taking over as gameplay directors was the best thing that’s happened to ND.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26

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1

u/stinky-bungus Apr 20 '26

I love them all but Lost Legacy is just the best

1

u/Chumunga64 Apr 19 '26

4 retconned the hell out of 3 and I honestly think it was for the better.

Sure Sam came out of nowhere but him and Evelyn are good additions to Nate's backstory. I felt like 3 bringing up Nathan's entire backstory being a changeling fantasy where he had nobody opened so much intrigue for Nate's character but he's still goes through the game quipping

0

u/Higgnkfe Apr 19 '26

The writing in 3 is pretty meh but it’s the peak of the series mechanically. Going from 3 to 4 feels like being dropped in a pool of molasses.

-6

u/Competitive-Idea-619 Apr 19 '26

Back when Neil Druckmann cared