A new PlayStation 5 ad appears to include a mysterious tease for an unannounced game that some fans believe may be the next Uncharted — one that doesn’t star Nathan Drake as its protagonist.
The new ad, titled “Live from PS5,” presents Sony’s suite of exclusives, both from PlayStation Studios and third parties like Square Enix, as live-action clips on a news broadcast. Those clips highlight games like God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal, and Gran Turismo 7. Another live-action clip, which is seen only in short, seconds-long bursts, shows a young woman exploring a cave lit only by a torch, and encountering an ancient artifact and blowing the dust off it. The footage does not appear to match any released or announced game from Sony Interactive Entertainment.
That’s why some PlayStation fans believe it’s a tease for the next Uncharted game, and that it will star Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher’s daughter, Cassie.
Cassie appeared as a young teenager in the playable epilogue of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. While the ending of the game doesn’t reveal too much about her character, it’s clear she has inherited her parents’ sense of adventure, and sometimes joins Nate and Elena on expeditions. But she’s unaware of the extent of her father’s treasure-hunting escapades — that is, until she finds the key to Nate’s secret cabinet, and her parents are forced to come clean about their adventurous past. Given Cassie’s interests and talents — she has a love of history and archaeology, speaks Latin, and can scuba dive — she seems like a natural fit for the video gaming adventuring lifestyle.
The woman seen in the new PS5 ad looks similar to a grown-up Cassie. She’s decked out in jungle fatigues and wearing a backpack and climbing gear.
Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann (who co-directed Uncharted 4) recently told Buzzfeed that the studio behind the Uncharted games put its “final brushstroke on that story,” saying it was done and “moving on.” But that doesn’t mean another studio couldn’t pick up where Naughty Dog left off, especially with a new heroine. Other teams, including Bend Studio (Uncharted: Golden Abyss) and Bluepoint Games (Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection) have had their hands on the franchise. After all, Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman has said last year’s Uncharted film adaptation is the start of a movie franchise, so Sony’s not ready to let the Drake family go.
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As VGC notes, job listings at PlayStation have pointed to another studio “co-developing an exciting new project with Naughty Dog in a beloved franchise.” The original developer behind Uncharted and The Last of Us is currently busy making a multiplayer spinoff in the world of The Last of Us, which we should hear more about this year.
The most recent entry in the Uncharted game franchise was 2017’s Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a spinoff starring Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross. In addition to exploring the franchise without Nathan Drake at the helm, Lost Legacy brought a new gameplay wrinkle to the Uncharted games: an open-world game map that players could explore in a non-linear fashion. Its new protagonists, and a fresh take on Uncharted gameplay, offered a glimpse into what the franchise could become in the future.