Well PAX AUS 2015 is now finally over and I was fortunate enough to be able to see and play Uncharted 4 Multiplayer. I actually thought it wasn’t going to be at the show, since they were only showing the E3 playthrough stuff on Friday, but they brought out the game during the weekend. I spent most of Sunday queueing several times to play and got 5-6 rounds in before the show closed.
Overall the game feel amazingly smooth. Whilst it clearly is still in development, the gameplay reminded me much of Uncharted 2 MP, which I consider the golden standard for the series. There seems to be emphasis on reducing cheap 1-hit kills and giving more tools to live longer.
Overall I think if you enjoyed UC2 multiplayer you like the game as it stands.
- The Beta comes out December 4th
- Arne mentioned the game is totally peer-to-peer like previous multiplayers
- The playtest didn’t have any boosters, but I’m pretty sure I saw them in the multiplayer trailer.
- Can’t drop a grenade while rolling.
- Can’t aim and throw a grenade, only arc-throw. This was only in the demo though apparently an ND Dev posted on the forums that it was going to be in.
- Loadouts are quite detailed now in terms of what you can customize now. The playtest had four fixed loadouts, each one had a different grenade, power weapon purchase etc. The playtest didn’t have weapon mods though.
- There’s the usual frag grenade, a medkit which AOE heals, and a landmine(!). It was really strange playing with the medkit equipped because out of habit you’d expect it to blow up and kill your enemy when thrown :S
- The current grenade system seems to work on a cooldown system. It seems you get unlimited grenades, but they are on a long cooldown. After I threw a nade, there was a 60 second timer before I could throw another one.
- There was no sprinting! The game movement speed feels very much like Uncharted 2.
- You can still reload while jumping, rolling etc (same as UC2/3)
- You can still roll to evade melee.
- There isn’t that horrific slowing down when you’re being shot at (like in Uncharted 3)
- Can’t press Triangle to switch between weapons while aiming
- It takes 3 melee hits to kill now, and there a flowing combo animation now. You can hold melee to charge up your attack which then makes it one hit kill, but I couldn’t get it to work.
- There’s a very short cooldown to jumping which is just enough to stop bunny hopping from UC2 but not enough to feel like it’s slowing you down
- There’s a “radar” now in the top left corner. You can see enemies when they start shooting. Also when you die and respawn you can see the enemy silhouettes through walls briefly.
- There were no additional power weapons on the maps during this playtest.
- Also I wasn’t able to pick up any other player’s weapons.
- Killing players gives you money. I think it was $100 for a down and $50 for a KO. You can then press the touchpad to open the buy menu and buy the various ‘kickbacks’, which are the El Dorado Idol, Cintamani Stone, Djinn Curse, summon your buddy, or power weapon. I only really used my power weapon, which was the grenade launcher.
- While there weren’t any weapons on the map, there were treasures scattered around which gave you money (about 2 kills worth).
- The loadout sniper rifle is a bolt action which doesn’t fire as fast as the Dragon Sniper. 2 hits to kill, or 1 headshot.
- The revive mechanic works exactly like the co-op arena version.
- Player executions are really quick. It’s just like a punt :O
- The pistole is a loadout weapon! :O
- AK-47 feels like the Uncharted 3 version.
- The FAL is the old 3-shot version from Uncharted 2, but recoils like the G-MAL.
- I couldn’t get a chance to test the Fleet Foot shuffle as I rarely ran into anyone 1v1. It was always a 3v3+ firefight.
- Flynn doesn’t sound like Flynn 🙁 I think they got a different voice actor.
