Neil Druckmann Revealed Why He Was Done With Uncharted Despite Knowing He Was Sitting on Millions With Another Sequel

Neil Druckmann revealed his intentions with leaving the widely celebrated franchise Uncharted behind and venturing onto other adventures. His account of the game comes from a deeply personal and intimate space.

The reason for him taking Uncharted off of his mind was largely due to some business decisions that he had to take given the rising appeal for the franchise. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is the last game in the series that featured the video game action hero Nathan Drake.

Neil Druckmann’s Personal Account of Why He Was Done With Nathan Drake

Neil Druckmann’s involvement with Uncharted goes long back. He has worked as a game designer and co-writer for the first two Uncharted games before his debut direction for The Last of Us.

He worked as a writer and director on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which was released in 2016. His account of the game and the development process behind it is a deeply personal account of what he went through during and before the production of the game.

The biggest reason for leaving Uncharted behind and starting a new chapter for Druckmann was largely due to the rise in popularity of Nathan Drake, which had made it really difficult for the developers to do justice to the character in the future, simultaneously making it bad for business.

During an interview at Sony’s pre-Xmas PlayStation Experience event back in 2016, Druckmann said:

With the end of this story, it will be really hard to do a sequel with Nathan Drake. We’ve been with this character for so long…He’s at the height of his popularity, so it’s not a good business decision, but I feel like the best way to honour him is to go out on top, to finish his story.

Druckmann concluded by not giving a definitive answer about whether this would mean the end of Uncharted all together or not, and rightly so. A new Uncharted game was released soon after, titled The Lost Legacy, without Nathan Drake.

Nathan Drake Became Too Big for His Own Good

The reason why Druckmann wanted to end Nathan Drake was because he did not feel it necessary to drag his story any further as he had become too big and even the slightest mistakes in the future would have destroyed the image of the character completely. He deserved a good end, and Druckmann gave him that.

Druckmann is not just a director but an auteur who created highly personal and emotional stories packed in with a world full of action and drama. His unique storytelling techniques are what sets him and his games apart in such a highly competitive market.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection was released in 2022 and included two of the most recent games, including Nathan Drake’s last Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Druckmann was not a part of The Lost Legacy and ended his journey with Nathan Drake in A Thief’s End.

Do you want to see Nathan Drake make a comeback in the future? Let us know in the comments below!