Uncharted 2 'Exceeding Expectations,' DLC This Year, says Naughty Dog
Uncharted 2 is unquestionably one of the best games of the year and is going to be vying for consumers' dollars this holiday season along with other major titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed II, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Naughty Dog's blockbuster title has garnered nigh universal praise (Metacritic of 97) and it appears that the retail reception is pretty good so far as well. Although Uncharted 2 has only been on the market for about 10 days now, Naughty Dog seems thrilled with the results.
“I would definitely say it's exceeding expectations,” Naughty Dog Creative Director Amy Hennig told IndustryGamers on the phone today. “Being in the industry for a while you learn to try to manage your expectations because you'd rather be surprised with good news than disappointed. It's a tough business, but from the early numbers I've seen getting reported back it's exceeded any estimates we had internally, and it's certainly outsold the first game by many, many times. That and the critical reception so far has been really gratifying.”
It's pretty clear that Uncharted 2 is the PS3 title on Sony's holiday slate, and when combined with the new PS3 Slim, the price cut and the upcoming Fortune Hunter PS3 bundle, Naughty Dog's latest will be expected to push hardware. So did Naughty Dog feel that pressure from Sony to produce a system seller?
Hennig responded, “No, although it's possible that Evan [Wells] and Christophe [Balestra] felt pressures that they didn't let trickle down to the rest of us. I think the thing is that I'm not sure anybody knew just how good the game was going to turn out. Sometimes you don't know when you're working on it and it isn't until the eleventh hour and all the pieces come together and you're like 'Wow, this is really coming together.' And that would go for us internally and for Sony, so it's hard to hang your hopes on something too far back and say 'We're projecting this is going to be our tent-pole for the year.' I think it was more a gradual realization that the stars were going to align – the new hardware and the price cut and the fact that some other titles were slipping into next year and that our game was just coming together so well. It was sort of just serendipity... So it was great timing, and from the initial numbers we've seen it does seem to be turning into a system seller, which is great. We're just blown away – it's surreal for us to see the reaction the game's getting.”
So now that Uncharted 2 is out and is doing quite well, does Naughty Dog intend to support it with future downloadable content? Hennig says “absolutely.”
“We're working on that now, and what we're prepared to say is that there will be DLC available before the end of the year. Without going into specifics, it'll involve new maps, new characters, things like that. Some of it will be free of charge and some of it will be purchasable. We've got a lot of people on the team working on this stuff, some really cool stuff that people will be excited about. So we're definitely taking it very seriously,” she said.
Our conversation with Hennig also went in-depth on developing for PS3, influences on Uncharted's design, and much more. We'll be bringing you the full Q&A in the near future. Stay tuned!
__________________________________________
Excellent, the game is definetely AHEAD of their expectation
I bet she used Vg Chartz figures to decide! {lol}!
DLC this year!
