Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will have a sandbox feel and more combat options than previous iterations, says Naughty Dog.

Speaking with Game Informer, game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann discussed how Nathan Drake will be able to do more than just climb, duck, sneak and shoot – he can battle enemies as he slides down mud hills and the like – as you saw in the PlayStation Experience demo.

“With the verticality of Nathan Drake, with adding set pieces that weren’t necessarily in this demo, how do you get a bigger flow, something that is deeper at an emotional level? All those things come together to make the Uncharted that we want to play,” said Druckmann (thanks Polygon).

“We have our vertical slice and we’ve found our flow and the voice of this game. To us the Uncharted combat works best when it has a flow to it, when you are not just behind cover, shooting over and ducking back down. When your cover is getting flanked and you have to jump and move down to another level.”

The team is now working on fleshing out the mechanics across the entire game and ensuring proper pacing.

Druckmann described the game as a large adventure set within a comic book style vibrant world, but one that feels realistic in tone.

Uncharted 4 will have multiplayer and companion AI in the form of Nathan Drake’s brother Sam who is as skilled and capable as Drake.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is out sometime this year.