Former Naughty Dog Dev Says Uncharted Remake Would be a “Cash Grab”

An experienced former senior designer for Naughty Dog, who operated during the peak Uncharted years, says there’s no need for an Uncharted remake, and Naughty Dog should focus its efforts on a new game instead.

Uncharted seems to be cryogenically frozen for now, until Naughty Dog decides it doesn’t need the franchise to be dormant any longer. 2017’s ‘The Lost Legacy’ is the final game for now, and a former dev has weighed in on what Naughty Dog should do with the franchise.

“Make a New Game” Instead of an Uncharted Remake

Speaking with FRVR, Benson Russell is a vastly experienced designer who served as a senior game designer from 2007 to 2015.

This means he was present for the release of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and presumably had a hand in the franchise up until Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, before leaving pre-launch.

When discussing Uncharted and the need for a remake, here’s what he had to say:

“Uncharted as a thing is still in the zeitgeist. There’s already a version you can play on modern consoles [to] get the experience. What’s the point of remastering [or remaking] it?

I just don’t see the point of remaking [it]. You’d have to rewrite the whole story to make it better which means you’re going to change the spirit and you’re going to change the scenes and what the first one was about, right?

You’re going to have to add all these scenes or take things away and a lot of the key set pieces—are you going to keep those? Are you going to have to redo them because they don’t fit your story?

Take the lessons of Uncharted 4 and make a new game that’s in the past or wherever you need it to be. It doesn’t make any sense [to remake it]. I honestly thought the same thing about The Last of Us Part 1… these are old games for a reason.”

Additionally, Russell believes that doing an Uncharted remake would be “more like a cash grab than it would feel like anything necessary at this point” and that told Naughty Dog: “Just don’t recreate the first game. It’s just, eh.”

Naughty Dog is making Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but it’s claimed that Naughty Dog is working on a new Uncharted game.

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