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(Image: NAUGHTY DOG)

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy will release later this month on 22, August and we're confident that long time Uncharted fans are sure to still love the latest PS4 exclusive, despite its distinct lack of Nathan Drake leading the new adventure.

As we've already mentioned in our preview if you thought that Uncharted 4 was the end of the series simply because Drake decided to trade in his treasure map for a simpler life, you couldn't be more mistaken.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Walkthrough - Hoysala Token and Queen's Ruby Guide

Thankfully we'd recently had the chance to not only play a portion of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy but also speak with the game's creative director and writer Shaun Escayg, as well as Naughty Dog's Director of Communications, Arne Meyer.

Together the pair helped build up a sense of why the studio chose to release The Lost Legacy as a standalone game (rather than DLC as originally was planned), why they opted against a story featuring Sam and Sullivan as well as how the games new leading ladies helped set the game apart from anything else in the Uncharted universe.

*** Take a look at some of the Uncharted Lost Legacy screenshots below ***

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is the first story expansion you have done for the Uncharted series. It initially started out as a DLC expansion to Uncharted 4, what created the drive to suddenly turn this into its own thing?

Shaun Escayg: So when we started out writing, what was DLC at the time, we had a bunch of storylines. There was a storyline for Sulivan, Sam, Cutter, Chloe and many more.

But it was Chloe's we kept coming back to.

Why does she choose self-preservation? Why does she always bail out? That really intrigued us, so to tell that story, we soon realised we needed to go back to Chloe’s roots, with her dad.

We knew right away we had a full game when we pitched the story, especially pairing up with Nadine because she really brought an extra dimension which we needed to tell that story.

But it was DLC. So why did the studio decide this was the right time to start adding that content where you hadn’t done before in Uncharted?

Arne Meyer: Some of it started because we dipped our toe in the pool with The Last of Us: Left Behind. We found that experience of exploring a side story so satisfying that we wanted to try it again.

As DLC, were you hitting brick walls? Realising you couldn't commit to this garden path or this backstory before you realised it needed to be something more?

Shaun Escayg: Well, we pitched many ideas and many storylines and we got a lot of push back from the studio because we were supposed to be doing 'DLC'.

The challenge was that to set it up narratively we needed time; because as much as Chloe is a fan favourite, but fans don't really know her.

To tell Chloe's story of this double dealing, shifty character who never really stuck it out, to tell her story to see if she could persevere, it needed a longer set up.

Eventually, Kurt Margenau, Josh Scherr and myself we're like 'look we have to tell a good story' and eventually, the Studio just said, 'OK, well if this is a full story, then ok.'

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4)

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4)

You’ve gone with Chloe and Nadine. But, can you maybe divulge, what was missing from those other stories? Obviously, there are lots of Sam and Sully fans and that partnership makes the most sense for an immediate Uncharted follow on?

Shaun Escayg: To be fair when we explored the Sam and Sullivan story grew quickly and grew big quickly, but it just wasn’t as compelling.

At Naughty Dog the best story wins and at the time we were exploring a number of different storylines and Chloe's was the one that we settled on.

To come out with something that felt fresh and has this new tone in the Uncharted world which was just so much more compelling at the time.

That doesn’t mean we won’t (explore Sam and Sullivan) in the future with the studio.

It's just that Chloe's journey as a character, gave us a blank canvas to start from and so we could do what we wanted, free of the constraints of everything else.

How would that Cutter story have worked? Like you’ve got everything in pairs? Who was Cutter with?

We initially explored pairing Cutter and Chloe. But we found the Nadine story more compelling. Nadine is just the perfect brew for that conflict.

They're complete opposites, but they also have the same trait for self-preservation.

They're two characters who both bail out. Chloe always bails out whereas Nadine bailed out from Shoreline. So you put these two characters together and you see how both sides fair as the story progresses.

Nadine from what we've seen, so far, is largely the same as in Uncharted 4. Strong, aggressive, a dominating personality. Does she have much of a character arc? Or will this mainly be Chloe's story?

So far you've only seen Nadine with these little moments - but you get to see Nadine in a way that you’ve never seen.

But yes, it’s Chloe centric, it's Chloe first and foremost. But you certainly see a different layer to Nadine.

You see pieces unfold, it starts with Chloe and her journey, she confronts elements of her past from her dad that pushes her and helps her grow as a character.

How does Asav, the games main antagonist fit into this blank canvas? Because you've had such a fantastic array of villains in the past, how do you go about making him feel unique?

Shaun Escayg: It comes down to the character development for Asav, his values are pretty noble too, at least it starts that way, like they say one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Asav believes in this cause, he believes he has a connection to the lineage of this area, he's not your typical brute or like Rafe he's not a spoiled brat, this is a character who worked hard, he was a doctor, he's given up a lot to get where he is, and he's passionate about this.

So he's smarter than you expect he's also very deliberate in every move he makes, so he's a new more grounded villain than ever before

Arne Meyer: I was going to say, I find him more grounded and more fleshed out than any other villain we've had.

Like his background why he has all this military support, it makes a lot of sense, whereas Rafe just had unlimited resources, right?

It's very specific in fleshing out why he is here, why he has got this military force, why he's creating conflict and chaos

Shaun Escayg: He's also part of a conflict that's being waged so he's part of a system that is feeding on itself, it never ends and it speaks to some of the bigger themes of the story.

I know you'd mentioned before that the game is in many ways the sum of all the Uncharted games so far. But if that's the case, what is it that makes the game unique and stand apart from those earlier entries?

Shaun Escayg: Well, it's the sum in as far as taking the best elements from gameplay experiences, but what we've done I think specifically in this one is to build on and improve on the narrative within the gameplay, which was key for us.

We want the player to never come out of that world, which is one of the reasons why our new open-world setting is so important.

That sense of wonder of being dropping into the middle of the Western Ghats, like the characters are, you don't have Nathan Drake with this bible of information who knows where everything is. you have to find these clues and discover as the characters

You have to find these clues and discover as the characters do, which is one of the cool things that I've always liked about Uncharted.

It was the discovery. Seeing things that are sometimes larger than life. We went back to that, back to these ruins people have never seen which are towering above us next to raging waterfalls.

Naturally, because this is Chloe's story and because Chloe is not Nathan Drake it obviously changes the tone and feel of the world.

Ultimately it's the combo of everything, but mainly because it's Chloe and Nadine specific.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is released 22 August 2017