Uncharted 3 Named and Detailed; Coming Next Year

Today Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 3 became and reality with the first game details, name and images being released via EW.

For his third treasure-hunting adventure in the now titled Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, Nathan Drake will embark on an adventure where he is asked to deceive, will be deceived, and will discover deception about his own identity. Much of the story will be tied into Nathan’s relationship with Victor “Sully” Sullivan, Drake’s already familiar father and mentor figure. The real story push will be to seek out a lost city buried somewhere in the Rub’ al Khali Desert of the Arabian peninsula.

Naughty Dog deliberately set a large portion of the game in the desert for the “challenge” of pulling it off from a technical perspective. Based on the two early teaser screenshots, their definition of “desert” will be more immersive then simply a background that pulls off the look. Don’t be surprised to find blowing/shifting sands and, if we’re lucky, mirages.

Within the desert and other unidentified locations will be numerous characters animated via mo-cap templates filmed in Naughty Dog’s new on-site mo-cap facility. The result should be playing a game that looks and feels more like a cinematic experience, ironic since the Uncharted game franchise is gearing up this year to expand to a movie starring Mark Wahlberg and a book.

The first trailer for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will premiere Saturday evening during the Spike Video Game Awards show. In the meantime, Naughty Dog and Sony are sharing a quick teaser to get the blood pumping.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will be exclusive to PS3 and arrive in stores sometime in the fourth quarter of 2011.