Ex-Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison may be working as a double-agent dismantling Microsoft’s console business from the inside these days, but he once walked the boards as a PlayStation man, taking every opportunity to share his love for rubber ducks and hastily incorporated motion sensors. That gave the executive a lot of sway among the platform holder’s first-party studios, and he nearly insisted that Nathan Drake’s escapades had another name.
“We put together this trailer for E3 to announce our game, but we didn’t have a name yet,” co-president Evan Wells remembered of the series’ infamous 2006 unveiling in an interview with IGN. “We had no idea what we were going to call it. We brainstormed a bunch of ideas. ‘Uncharted’, actually, was on the table for a while, but we went away from it.”
He continued: “Finally, for E3, we needed a name. We put the name in the trailer. It was going to be Uncharted. We made our peace with it and said, ‘Okay, this is going to be awesome.’” Unfortunately, the abovementioned eight-foot executive didn’t agree, pointing out that the title may sound bad overseas. “In the UK, if you have a game that’s ‘uncharted’, that means that it didn’t do well, it didn’t crack the Top 10,” he told the developer. We can sort of see the point.
Of course, this left Wells and crew with a bit of a dilemma – its game still didn’t have a name. “Just don’t put a name on it,” were Harrison’s words of wisdom, meaning that the trailer ended with just the Naughty Dog logo. That resulted in the title being unofficially dubbed ‘Dude Raider’ by fans. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for Harrison to warm to the original option, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was born.
For reference, we’ve included the debut trailer below. What do you think would have been an appropriate name for the Californian company’s Indiana Jones-esque franchise? Personally, we’d have been more inclined to pick up the original at launch if it was dubbed ‘The Art of the Half-Tuck’. After all, we’ve always found Drake’s inability to dress himself properly utterly fascinating.
[source uk.ign.com]
Comments 9
I don't really understand the "Dude Raider" thing (also it sounds like gay porn), up until the reboot I never saw many similarities between Tomb Raider and Uncharted. Indiana Jones? Yes, but not Tomb Raider.
I've only played uncharted on the vita but its been a lot of fun. The touch screen gameplay works very well. If they port unchartered I'll definitely buy it and very much looking forward to uncharted 4. It would be awesome if they could integrate the vita as not just a remote play console but as an alternative to the dualshock. Please. As for a name I think uncharted works well?
@RyoHazuki What Sony should do is make an Uncharted collection for Vita and PS4. Uncharted fits the Vita like a glove and the PS4 deserves it after all the collections the PS3 got.
The only collections the PS3 doesn't have his Uncharted and LittleBigPlanet. And now that I'm thinking about it, why is there no Parappa the Rapper for the Vita? Even an HD re-release would suffice.
"Phil Harrison may be working as a double-agent dismantling Microsoft’s console business from the inside these days"
@BornOfEvil totally agree, not sure how well uncharted full versions would work on vita but I'm sure they'd do better than most to port it. I'm hoping they release shenmue collection on vita I'm sure it wouldn't be too costly to upgrade and it would give Sega a good indication as to whether or not there's enough interest in vol 3.
@Dodoo Haha, glad you liked that one!
@get2sammyb - Yeah you get a Bronze Trophy for that!
@RyoHazuki a shenmue hd collection would be great. Ah the dreamcast what a console
@ReigningSemtex yeah, I only got rid of mine a few months ago. The only games I would have gone back to were shenmue and soulcalibur.
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