Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the third main entry in the Uncharted series. Set two years after Among Thieves (2009), the single-player story follows Nathan Drake and his mentor Victor Sullivan as they search for the legendary lost city of Iram of the Pillars while battling a secret society led by Sullivan's former employer, Katherine Marlowe.
Development for Uncharted 3 began in 2010. Development was approached by incorporating locations distinct from the series' previous entries, with the team deciding on deserts and urban areas, drawing inspiration for the plot from the life of archaeologist T. E. Lawrence. Naughty Dog sought to upgrade the game's openness and realism, increasing the volume of motion capture and voice acting, and conducting field research for better visual environments and sounds. The development team also aimed to improve the multiplayer system, introducing new competitive and co-operative modes, while the game is also notable for being one of the first to carry the new online PlayStation Network Pass feature.
Drake's Deception received acclaim for its voice acting, graphics, story, and cinematic quality, though some criticized its linearity and found it inferior to its predecessor. The game received Game of the Year accolades from numerous publications and award events, and was a commercial success, selling over nine million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 3 games. The game was followed by the sequel Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in 2016, and was re-released on PlayStation 4 as part of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
Gameplay Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is an action-adventure platform video game played from a third-person perspective, with the player in control of Nathan Drake. Drake has a large number of different animation sets, enabling him to react according to his surroundings. Drake is physically adept and can jump, sprint, climb, swim, scale narrow ledges and wall faces to get between points, and perform other acrobatic actions. Drake can now take on opponents in more ways than before: hand-to-hand combat with multiple opponents, contextual melee attacks, and new stealth options. Uncharted 3 also features expanded and diverse traversal moves with deep gunplay. Drake can be equipped with up to two firearms – one single-handed and one two-handed – and four grenades. Drake can pick up weapons, automatically replacing the existing weapon he was using, and additional ammunition from downed enemies.
The player can direct Drake to take cover behind corners or low walls using either aimed or blind fire to kill his enemies. The player can also have Drake fire while moving. If Drake is undetected by his enemies, the player can attempt to use stealth to take them out, such as by sneaking up behind them and killing them with one hit, or by dropping down onto an enemy whilst Drake is hanging from a ledge. The stealth mechanic has been simplified and improved. Some areas of the game will require the player to solve puzzles with the use of Drake's journal, which provides clues towards the puzzles' solutions. When enabled, a hint system provides gameplay clues, such as the direction of the next objective.
Multiplayer Similarly to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3 includes a separate multiplayer component with network play, featuring competitive and co-operative modes of play. The beta features several customization options, such as different character skins, clown masks, ability boosters, skill medals to attain, and a progressive ranking system. Uncharted 3 will introduce free-for-all modes such as standard deathmatch, character model and weapon modification, and dynamic environmental 'events' within multiplayer maps, similar to the set pieces from the game's campaign – such as a hostile plane flying above shooting all players it catches in its crossfire. Collectible treasures are also said to be available within the multiplayer maps, which can be used as in-game currency for unlocking new characters, customization equipment, and boosters. Unlocked customizations can either allow for changes to be made in character appearances, such as clothing and skin tone or upgrade weapon attributes.
A Buddy System has also been implemented into multiplayer. At the beginning of each match, the player may be joined by a random partner or a friend if joining their game. The buddy's emblem remains displayed as part of the player's HUD to indicate their location relative to the player's own on the map. With your Buddy, you can do a cooperative taunt over dead enemies you defeated together, and can also collect each other's earned treasures for them. The player can spawn next to his buddy so long as the buddy remains alive and out of combat. With the aim of making the multiplayer more flexible and accessible, several logistical improvements have been added, such as the capability to join games in progress or for two different PlayStation Network accounts to play together in split-screen multiplayer on a single console. In the event of ties or near-ties, matches enter an elimination mode as they wind down, in which the players are restricted to one life and must compete to wipe out all of the opposing team's members first within the allotted remaining time.
Several new features have been included in the game, including mechanics that create gameplay situations designed to assist the losing team, improves ability enhancements and augmentations that must be purchased for each use, special abilities that are made available when a certain number of medals has been attained within a match, and "Uncharted TV", a small video window that appears throughout the multiplayer menus, creating a video that can be uploaded to Facebook, YouTube or the XMB. Multiplayer also includes a character creation system, allowing a user to extensively customize their in-game character. Cooperative multiplayer also returns from Uncharted 2.
The multiplayer servers of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception were terminated on September 3, 2019, along with its predecessor as well.
Plot
Two years after the events of the previous game, treasure hunters Nathan "Nate" Drake (Nolan North) and Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle) meet with Talbot (Robin Atkin Downes) in London, who is interested in purchasing Nate's ring, inherited from Sir Francis Drake. The duo accuses Talbot of using counterfeit banknotes, and a fight ensues. They are subdued by Talbot's cohort, Charlie Cutter (Graham McTavish), and Talbot's employer, Katherine Marlowe (Rosalind Ayres). Cutter shoots Nate and Sully.
20 years earlier, a teenage Nate (Billy Unger) searches a museum in Cartagena, Colombia for the ring. He sees Sully working with Marlowe to retrieve it. Nate is caught by Marlowe and her henchmen, but Sully rescues him and takes him on as his protégé.
In the present, Nate and Sully are unharmed; Cutter is an ally working with them. With the help of Chloe Frazer (Claudia Black), the group traces Marlowe to an underground library. They retrieve a map of Francis Drake's voyage to Arabia, having been commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to find the lost city of Ubar. Clues to its location lie in Crusader crypts in a French chateau and a Syrian citadel. Nate and Sully locate the chateau and find one half of an amulet, but are ambushed by Talbot and his henchmen, who take the amulet and set the chateau on fire. Nate and Sully escape.
In Syria, Nate and Sully meet Chloe and Cutter, learning that Marlowe is the head of the same secret society to which Francis Drake belonged. They find the other amulet half, revealing the next clue in Yemen, but are found by Marlowe, Talbot, and their henchmen. As they escape, Cutter breaks his leg, forcing him and Chloe to back out.
In Yemen, Nate and Sully reunite with Elena Fisher (Emily Rose), Nate's estranged wife, who helps them locate a tomb that details the location of Ubar in the Rub' al Khali desert. Nate is shot with a hallucinogenic dart and captured by Marlowe and Talbot. Marlowe has accumulated documents concerning Nate's childhood, revealing he adopted the name of Drake growing up in an orphanage. Talbot learns of Sully's location, and Nate chases after him. Nate is captured by Rameses, a pirate working for Marlowe, who claims to have captured Sully. Nate escapes and searches for Sully on Rameses' ship. He discovers that Rameses lied and inadvertently sinks the ship. Nate escapes, and Rameses drowns.
Nate washes ashore in Yemen. He learns from Elena that Sully was captured by Marlowe and forced to lead them to Ubar. Nate sneaks onto a cargo plane airdropping supplies to Marlowe's convoy but is discovered, and a shootout ensues that destroys the plane. He deploys a parachute and lands in the desert.
After wandering the desert, Nate is rescued by a Bedouin tribe led by their Sheikh Salim (TJ Ramini). Salim explains that Ubar was doomed by King Solomon when he imprisoned Djinn in a vessel and cast it into the city. Salim and Nate attack Marlowe's convoy and rescue Sully. Nate and Sully lose Salim in a sandstorm but find and enter Ubar, where Nate drinks from a fountain. Talbot appears and shoots Sully, killing him. Nate gives chase and experiences hallucinations. He encounters Sully, his death having been an illusion. Sully realizes that Solomon's vessel contained hallucinogenic materials, tainting the water supply. The vessel is what Queen Elizabeth sent Francis Drake to find, but upon learning the truth, he abandoned his mission and lied to her.
Nate and Sully find Marlowe using a winch to recover the vessel from the waters. Nate destroys the winch and a support column, causing the city to collapse. Marlowe and Talbot corner Nate and Sully, but the floor throws Marlowe into a sinkhole. Nate attempts to save her, but Marlowe sinks to her death, taking Drake's ring with her. Talbot attacks Sully and Nate, before he is shot and falls into the sinkhole. Salim rescues them as the city is engulfed by the desert. Nate and Sully return to Yemen. Sully returns Nate's wedding ring, which he has secretly kept safe since Nate and Elena's separation. Elena joins them, and Nate offers her his ring. The two embrace, and the three fly home on Sully's new seaplane.
Development The game was first revealed by Entertainment Weekly in December 2010. Creative director Amy Hennig explained that the desire for a desert-themed Uncharted stemmed from wanting to push the team creatively and technologically, as "organic" elements such as sand, water, and fire are "technically difficult to credibly render with animation".
Game director Justin Richmond explained that the game feels more open than other Uncharted games: "We're not an open-world game, we're never going to be an open-world game but; we can try. It's still up in the air how much gameplay we're going to let you wander around. But we aim to let you just ride a thousand miles off into the middle of nowhere and still find action and adventure as you go. Ultimately the feeling we want to get is, yeah, your character is lost in the desert. So it needs to feel like that. We aim to make it feel open-world". In regards to whether or not PlayStation Move would be supported in Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog explained that "a great Move game is a game made around Move and we started Uncharted long before that. It would be very difficult for us to adjust it. We tried a couple of things but it wasn't making a lot of sense".