So, how about we start speculating on what they're going to change across all three games? Since they're saying they have the Uncharted engine (at least the way it's worded in the blogpost) and have mentioned already there's going to be changes/improvements across all three games based on what they've read over the years online the changes have to be pretty significant. I'll start with what I think for each game.
Drake's Fortune
Basically, the one with the most to gain from this collection. It's the least polished of the three since it's the first entry in the series.
I think, ultimately, they'll be updating UC1's gameplay to at least the standard of UC2. Imagine playing UC1 with UC2's aiming, shooting, movement, and physics (jumping). But imagine if they also gave UC1 UC3's melee combat? UC1's melee is already
kind of like UC3 but it's extremely janky (much like the rest of the gameplay) and isn't something you often get to use because the punches are so delayed and it takes forever to actually kill people with it. Only good thing with melee you can do is steelfist (blindfire + melee). It tried to have some kind of combo list with square and triangle but it's just really poorly implemented and UC1 could use something simpler like UC3's melee combat. Plus, as far as I know, UC1 doesn't have any moments in the game where its melee combat is
required to move forward (no triggers or scripted moments) like UC2 does (UC2 has a boss where its melee combat is used). So they wouldn't have to worry about changing anything story-wise at all.
So, my bet with UC1 is they'll update this one the most -- possibly the animations as well (they are
really choppy compared to 2 and 3). At least the animations for Drake. If they're using one model of Drake across all three games, this shouldn't be impossible to do at all.
It's been quite some time since I've played UC1 so I can't remember if there's any problem areas in the game, except maybe the area before you go into the
. That area is ridiculous to beat on your first time through and I'd expect them to adjust the late-game enemy waves for sure. And probably even some of the early-game enemy waves as well (notably Chapter 5 & Chapter 6, IMO).
Can't think of much else they'd do. I hope they leave enemy AI alone, though. I like how often the enemies dodge in UC1 -- makes it more of a good challenge.
Edit: I just remembered, I forgot to throw in the "no duh" changes like removing sixaxis "features" (balancing on narrow objects and grenade throwing). And even changes to the grenades so they're not just... little pellets -- just mimic how they work in UC2 or UC3.
Among Thieves
This one is probably going to be changed the least. It's the perfect game, there's no reason to change the gameplay
unless they wanted to make the melee combat consistent across all three games in this collection. In which case, it would be cool if this also had UC3's melee combat but they'd have to go in and adjust the boss fight to accommodate, I think. In fact, that boss fight is probably going to get changed somewhat as well as I remember that particular fight being rather... disliked since it's so obtuse in how you have to win or trigger the cutscene. Definitely could be better.
I can't imagine they'll change the final boss fight at all, though. It's not fun but it gets the job done as it's actually pretty challenging.
They could definitely fix up the area in Chapter 2 that
everyone had trouble with the first time through. Just fix stealth in general, really. Not sure what they could do specifically but I'm sure they know about Chapter 2, at least.
Beyond those things, I don't expect much else for this unless I'm forgetting something late-game that's pretty awful/bad.
Drake's Deception
This one will probably get more changes than UC2. For one thing, they
have to add the Tweaks to it. ND wanted to have Tweaks for UC3 but they ran out of time/couldn't get it working in UC3 (it's a bit of both since UC3 absolutely needed more time in the oven in general). Just to clarify, Tweaks would include stuff like Black & White filter, skins (allowing you to "play" as Elena, Sully, Chloe, Cutter, Doughnut Drake, etc etc), weapons (this allowed you to generate any weapon you wanted as long as you unlocked it by doing something in the game's single player), and some other things. I'm 99% positive we will get Tweaks in UC3 this time around and honestly, as someone who has played UC3 before, that makes this release all the more worth it.
That said, gameplay-wise they really can't change much unless they wanted to go back and mirror UC3's aiming to
exactly UC2. Yes, they did already put in an option for it and it
is pretty close to UC2 but I recall some GAFfers saying it still wasn't the same
exactly but it was good enough. This is their chance to make it right and make it the
default aiming. UC3's default aim was pretty awful. Could you get through the game with it? Sure, but it definitely wasn't as smooth as UC2 nor could you aim the same way or anything.
Now, I think if there's anything they should do to any Chapters in the game in terms of adjusting enemy locations or waves or behavior, they should
absolutely make it possible to stealth Chapter 14. They should, honestly, make more of the Chapters possible to stealth. UC3 has less chapters/sections you can stealth through than UC2 and that's, honestly, really disappointing. And the ones you
can stealth through are ludicrously hard to do consistently. So, they absolutely need to tweak those sections... I'm talking specifically the one area in Syria, the one area in the Airport (
), and the shipyard.
The shipyard itself doesn't need to, necessarily, be fixed but it could use some clues to help players on how to approach those sections. Especially the hardest one at the near-end of it. I'd like to see it be easier to do, because damn it is hard to stealth it (yes, it's possible to stealth it just really friggin' hard).
I suppose if they address stealth as a whole in some way across all three games it'd fix multiple Chapters across all three games but I have a feeling they might leave stealth alone just because it's not a focal gameplay mechanic (even though it's clearly
an option they give you in a ton of areas in UC2). I guess we'll see. The changes to stealth in UC4 give me some hope that
maybe they will do a band-aid fix to it in this collection for all three, at least.
A longggg post (apologies) but I kind of wanted to talk about this stuff anyway.
