Why Uncharted 5 Should Change The Series’ Protagonist

It’s been widely suspected that Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is the long-running franchise’s final installment. The original Uncharted debuted in 2007, and the fourth game came out in 2016. But since then, even though an Uncharted movie is currently in the works, there’s been no word on if or when a fifth game could be happening. Since the games usually release in 2-5 years of each other, it doesn’t bode well that there’s been no news about another title.

Naughty Dog has implied that they’re done with the franchise, suggesting they feel as though there’s not much more they can creatively do with the series. Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann previously tweeted in 2015 that a poster of Uncharted 4 was “looking mighty good for his last E3,” again suggesting the series was coming to a close.

However, there’s reason to not give up hope for another Uncharted title. For one, the franchise is still going strong and the new movie will likely only serve to amp up the hype. But even more, the epilogue of Uncharted 4 felt more like it was setting things up for future adventures rather than bringing the series to a close. The introduction of Nate and Elena’s daughter Cassie, in particular, is the perfect opportunity to revive the series and also have a female lead step up to the stage.

Uncharted 5 Desperately Needs A Female Lead

The video game industry has recently been rocked by allegations of sexism and sexual misconduct in the workplace. Earlier this year, for instance, Ubisoft came under fire after a series of female former employees came forward to claim mistreatment. “The culture there is really hard as a woman,” Ellen Lee, who formerly worked for Ubisoft’s San Francisco office as a developer for seven years, told Bloomberg. “If you weren’t part of the boys’ club, you were just working hard on the outskirts.” Similarly, there were also reports that Ubisoft significantly reduced (or in some cases removed) the role of female characters in the past three Assassin’s Creed games, fearing the female leads “wouldn’t sell.”

Compared to other games, Naughty Dog has done a good job at incorporating strong female characters into the Uncharted series. So much so, the introduction of Nadine, one of Nate’s main foes in Uncharted 4, ticked off some gamers because of her sheer strength and determination. “You have some sexist focus testers who were really upset by Nadine beating up Nate, and really upset at the end when it was Nate’s daughter,” Nate Druckmann previously said, Polygon reports. “To the point where we had to ask one guy to leave. In his core, it just affected him.”

While Uncharted has had strong female characters, from Nadine to Chloe and Elena, the series has never featured one at the forefront of the game, as Nate has always been the lead character. But Cassie would be the perfect choice for a new hero – she has her mother’s signature looks and her father’s humor, and she also inherited both of their passions for treasure hunting and adventure. A new Uncharted game could easily follow Cassie as she embarks on her first solo adventure, or alternatively, the teen could be faced with the difficult task of saving her parents after they get into a sticky situation. Either way, it’s a perfect opportunity to bring familiar faces back to the franchise while also focused in someone completely new, giving the series a mini makeover while finally introducing the female lead it deserves.

At the end of the day, what Uncharted fans ultimately would love to see is the release of a new game, and given that the fourth game’s ending provides plenty of content to work with, the ending of the franchise may not be over after all.

Sources: Polygon, Bloomberg

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