Uncharted 4 isn't Open World, it's "Wide-Linear", Dev says

In a recent interview with Gamespot at E3 2015, Neil Druckmann, creative director of Naughty Dog, revealed that Uncharted 4 will not be following the Open World sandbox route to deliver it's signature brand of experience.

Yeah, I mean the term we use is wide-linear. It's not open-world, because we wanted to tell a very specific story, with very specific tension.

Druckmann stated that the relaxed pace of Open World experiences can really get in the way of the dynamics of the narrative, particularly in the case of a focused experience like the Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

The thing I have a hard time with, in open-world games, is that there's a lack of tension. Say if my ally's life is in jeopardy; I can still go off and do five different side-quests, and I don't believe that jeopardy. So I feel we need some way to control the pacing, and it needs to be ways where you are still active as well.

I have to agree, for a heavily story driven experience, the linear approach towards the gameplay is often the most suited one. Think of the Half Life games which I don't think would have had the same impact if it weren't as tightly paced as it were.

It seems to me that the term 'Wide Linear' is somewhat akin to the term "Orchestrated Sandbox" that Crytek used to describe Crysis 2's gameplay back in 2011 which allowed for multiple approaches towards a single objective, without disconnecting the player from the narrative.

Druckmann also emphasized that the storytelling will be the most important part of the heavily anticipated title.

For us, the story is king. I don't mean writing, and I don't mean script. What I mean is, there's a certain experience we're trying to make, and that's going to trump the gameplay, that's going to trump the graphics. This high-level experience we create should, eventually, win that argument of what this game is going to be.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be released for the Playstation 4 sometimes in 2016. Also, check out the newly released (jaw dropping) hi-res screenshots of the game here.

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