Q&A With Amy Hennig, Creative Director and Writer for the Uncharted series
Q: When writing the script how do you get the balance right between integrating historical fact and letting your own imagination run wild?
A: We always try to give our stories some basis in historical reality, a true historical mystery connected to actual historical figures that can be used as a “hook”. From that initial hook we launch into our own “what if”, but that hook grounds us in a reality that’s researchable and gives our stories some authenticity.
While laying the groundwork for Uncharted 3, we did a lot of research into T.E. Lawrence’s adventures, and those of other explorers who ventured into the Rub’ al Khali desert looking for the legendary lost city that Lawrence himself coined the “Atlantis of the Sands”. We use this as the foundation for our narrative and, through a ton of reading and reference material, we make sure that no matter what liberties we choose to take with our fiction, it is grounded in some historical fact.
Q: Which comes first, the idea for the storyline or a desire to base the game within a particular environment e.g. the desert?
A: It’s usually a little bit of both. We knew we wanted to tackle sand as a technology challenge from very early on in the development of Uncharted 3. Since we had never tackled any desert environments in previous games, it just made sense to head down that route with Uncharted 3.
Sometimes the narrative dictates which locations we want to visit – following T.E. Lawrence’s trail from Europe into the Arabian Peninsula, for example – and sometimes just wanting to explore certain locations within the game means we try to fit it within the narrative framework. Thankfully, the fluid and collaborative development process at Naughty Dog allows for a ton of flexibility so that the interests of both gameplay and narrative can find a way to fit together in nearly all cases.
Q: The story of Lawrence of Arabia will be familiar to many people. What historical elements really drew you to Lawrence’s story?
A: There were a few things, besides the obvious initial “hook” of his fascination with this fabled lost city. Lawrence was an archaeologist and an adventurer prior to becoming involved in the Arab Revolt of the early 1900s, the part of his life he is best known for.
This hunger for adventure and greatness is one of the ways in which Lawrence’s life parallels Sir Francis Drake’s, and Nathan Drake’s. Lawrence also did an exceptional amount of travelling, which provided us with reasons to take Drake and the player to different, interesting locations around the world. Another intriguing element was the allegedly mysterious circumstances that are rumoured to have surrounded Lawrence’s fatal motorcycle accident, which gave us a way (by implication) to associate our antagonists’ “secret society” to his untimely death.
Q: Tell us more about the lost city of Ubar, the fabled “Atlantis of the Sands” and the part it plays within the game.
A: Ubar or “Iram of the Pillars” was an ancient city in the middle of the Rub’ al Khali desert, rumoured to have been a fabulously wealthy trading centre thousands of years ago. According to legend, Iram was struck down by God for its wickedness and was therefore lost to the sands of the desert.
Nathan Drake believes that his famous ancestor, Sir Francis Drake, made a secret detour to the Arabian Peninsula during his circumnavigation of the globe, in an attempt to unearth the fabled lost city. Iram is rumoured to hold a vast amount of treasure – “immeasurable wealth,” as described in Uncharted 3. This quest pits him against a longtime adversary, Katherine Marlowe, who’s been seeking the same lost city for many years.
Q: What research went into recreating the Arabian Desert in the game?
A: We didn’t directly visit any locations in the Arabian Peninsula as part of research into the game. But we did an exhaustive amount of research, compiling visual reference and reading accounts of travels in that part of the world. The landscape of Wadi Rum – where Lawrence spent a good deal of time during the Arab Revolt, and where David Lean shot much of his famous film, Lawrence of Arabia – was definitely an inspiration for the look of the desert canyons in the game.
There is a gameplay montage sequence of Drake lost in the desert, trying desperately to cross the sea of sand – it spans a couple of days, as he slips more and more into delirium and exhaustion. The visuals in this sequence were based on a lot of our research, but also hugely inspired by Lawrence of Arabia. We tried to emulate the feel of being in the desert, the grit and the sun, the way the sand drifts in surreal patterns, and curls at the top of the dunes. Drake eventually has a moment of hope when he finds a village in the distance, but it turns out to be an abandoned settlement, a ghost town. There’s a short sequence in Lawrence of Arabia, after Lawrence has crossed the desert – exhausted and covered in fine sand, he finds a small, abandoned outpost. The feeling of this place definitely inspired some of the look of our abandoned village.
Also, to capture the look and feel of the desert, a group of Naughty Dog staff headed out to the Imperial Sand Dunes in Southern California to get an up-close and personal experience of the desert, documenting their adventure for animation and visual effects research. Their first-hand experience and video proved invaluable reference when it came to emulating the properties of the sand, so that we could faithfully reproduce a believable desert environment in Uncharted 3.
Q: A lot of Uncharted 3 is set outside of Arabia. How does the rest of the story tie in with Lawrence history?
A: Lawrence had a lifelong fascination with the Crusades, and explored Crusader sites France and Syria as a young archaeologist.
He made an exhaustive survey of Crusader castles in France by bicycle in 1908, and followed that up in 1909 with a three-month walking tour of Crusader sites in Syria. It’s the clues in Lawrence’s notebook that lead Drake to unravel the mysteries of a dilapidated chateau in France, and the inscrutable ruins of a Crusader fortress in Syria. Following these clues, Drake realises there’s a connection between these sites, the Crusaders who lived there 1000 years ago, and the legends of the lost city of Iram.
Q: What other Lawrence references are there throughout the game?
A: Lawrence was an obsessive character, even as a young boy – always testing himself for trials that he believed lay ahead in his life. Like our Nathan Drake, he yearned for greatness, to prove himself more than what he was born to be.
This is clear from the quote at the start of the game, which is taken from Lawrence’s introduction to The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.”
The way Lawrence’s experiences shaped his idea of “the dreamers of the day” (a warning about the dangers of unbridled ambition) became a touchstone for Uncharted 3, and other themes from Lawrence’s life – the fear of loss and death, of failing the ones you love – are there in our story too.
