Uncharted 4 Developer Reveals Controversial Feature Cut Before Release

Uncharted 4 is a critically-acclaimed and best-selling game and the best Uncharted game not named Uncharted 2. That said, this was almost all sacrificed by the inclusion of a stamina bar. That's right, the Naughty Dog game almost had a stamina bar that would appear and need to be managed during climbing scenes. If you played Uncharted 4, you will know that Nathan Drake likes to climb things in the game so this would have been a reoccurring mechanic. And this could have negatively impacted the game considerably. While it didn't impact the game overall, the stamina mechanic when it came to climbing in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was quite controversial. That said, it was cut so we'll never know if Naughty Dog would have realized the system better. 

The news comes the way of Josh Scherr, a writer on the game, who revealed as much while speaking to Couch Soup. According to Scherr, the idea behind the mechanic was to provide a challenge to these sections of the game. That said, it was ultimately scrapped because the team felt it didn't mesh well with other aspects of the game and sometimes gave players too much to worry about during this section. More specifically, the team didn't want players to have to content with this stamina bar while also navigating the map, platforming, and potentially even shooting enemies.

While we know that a stamina bar was once in the game, we don't know how far along it was in development or, in other words, when it was removed from the game. 

While we'll never know if Uncharted 4 would have been a better game with a climbing stamina bar, it's hard to imagine it would have been much better considering the game got a 93 on Metacritic when it was released and is one of the best-selling PS4 exclusives of all time.

That said, and as always, feel free to lleave a comment or let me know what you think via Tyler_Fischer_ over on Twitter. Was Naughty Dog right to cut this from the game or should it have kept this mechanic in the final product?

H/T, MP1st.