Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End took me to the edge of that state
of mind known as The Uncanny Valley and left me there longer than any other
video game has ever managed to do. This was a good thing. Dare I say, an excellent thing. An astonishingly immersive thing the likes of which I
have never experienced before.
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| Obtained from wikipedia, after I'd already typed up my definition... |
Before I explain why my experience was so sublime, I first
need to ask: Do you know what The Uncany Valley is? It’s a chart. A line-graph,
more specifically. On the one axis you have immersion, suspension of disbelief,
whatever you want to call it; this is the measure of how
enthralled you can get
in a particularly simulated experience. And on the other axis you have the
human-ness of the characters, objects, and concepts in that simulation; in
other words, you’re measuring how ‘real’ and ‘relatable’ (i.e. ‘canny’) those
things are, as objectively as possible. The lines go up, then plateau for a
bit, then suddenly drop way the hell off… That’s because the more and more
human something gets, and likewise the more and more your mind starts to
believe it’s human, the more immersed you get, until suddenly, your mind reels
because something just isn’t quite right.
A character’s eyes or teeth are too white, or she never blinks, or her hair is
perfect except for that single strand that’s clearly digitized. Welcome to the
Uncanny Valley. |
| A [meme-famous] glitch from Assassin's Creed Unity, and a perfect example of how you can plunge over the edge! |
A lot of games take you there. But, getting back to my main
point, not a lot of them do it quite the same as Uncharted 4. And it’s not just
the astoundingly detailed character models and animations that brought me
there. It’s the voice acting. It’s the script itself. It’s the emotion that
emerges as all those elements become one. It’s so utterly beautiful.
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| One of the best scenes in any video game ever. |
I approached Uncharted 4 pretty much the same way I
approached all the other Uncharted titles: I heard about it, scoffed, said to
myself and anyone who would listen that no doubt they finally sold out their
quality storytelling for a quick cashgrab, didn’t actually care, and ultimately
avoided playing it. In brief, I’d written the game off. The only reason I
actually decided to play the thing was because I saw it sitting on my local
library’s shelf (a rare occurrence since the thing had obviously been passed
around like a virus in a daycare). On a whim, I picked it up and checked it
out.
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| "Shot" like a movie. Acted like a movie. As gripping, if not moreso, as a movie. |
It was probably the best decision I’ve made in the past
several months. Certainly the most rewarding. This isn’t a ‘review’ of the
game. If you’re reading this and wondering if I’ll recommend you play it, I can
answer that already: YES!
But here’s the thing: I quickly lost interest in the GAME
that is Uncharted 4. Whenever the Brothers Drake found themselves in yet
another gun battle or throwing out a grappling line and then eerily and
instantaneously drawing it back in after swinging and leaping over impossible
fissures and slamming their heads against cave walls and suffering gunshot
wounds and murdering countless fellow humans and laughing it all off… Well, the
GAME broke my immersion, and I think, for once, it seriously damaged my
immersion.
You see, the game is so realistic – it doesn’t just LOOK it,
it FEELS it, in your heart – that it would take me right to the edge of the
uncanny valley and leave me there, and I felt the world fall away, and it was
breathtaking. But then the game would assert itself because I think the game
felt it kind of had to, and that would send me reeling over.
 |
| ....Maybe TOO MUCH movie. Realistically, how many times can a human daredevil expect to swing to a ledge while being shot at, grab a hold firm enough to hold his weight, and scramble to safety? It breaks immersion. |
What could Naughty Dog – oh, brilliant frikkin’ Naughty Dog – have done? Should they have cut out all the combat and exploration and platforming and dared to sell it as an Uncharted game? No. I understand. They couldn’t have done that. I am left wondering, however, if there could have been a way to evoke the same excitement during a chase, a shootout, or a standoff WITHOUT the gratuitous violence and gonzo unbelievability. I think so. But who can say whether re-writing the Uncharted formula in such a way would’ve broken my immersion in another way.
