There May Yet be an Uncharted 5. God Forbid.

Uncharted, the game series that reminded you that Naughty Dog had a life outside talking animals, is coming to a climatic end in Nathan Drake’s upcoming adventure, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Naughty Dog has been very clear with its fans pretty much from the beginning--this was the end of the Uncharted series. But now, a we inch ever closer to the release, creative director Neil Druckmann felt the way to clarify to The Sun: this is the end of Nathan Drake’s adventures… it may not yet be the end of Uncharted.

Of course.

"He's at the height of his popularity, so it's not a good business decision. But I feel like the best way to honour him is to go out on top, to finish his story. Whether that's it for Uncharted? I don't know. At the end of the day Sony owns Uncharted and they can do whatever they want. But at the end of this story, it will be really hard to do a sequel with Nathan Drake."

Okay, that’s fair: Sony is the IP owner, and if they want to make an Uncharted 5, there’s nothing really that Naughty Dog can do about it outside protest quietly and hope the new studio they give it too won’t screw it up. Now, how they plan to ENSURE Nathan Drake never comes back, that interests me--what, are they going to kill him? Break both his legs? Make him a vegetable? No matter what they can do, there’s always the chance of a prequel!

That said, later in the interview, he seemed to strongly imply it wouldn’t be death or injury that takes him out of the adventuring game… rather, it may be nothing more than a lifetime’s worth of love and passion finally coming to fruition.
 

"The heart of this is Nathan Drake's struggle: how do you balance your relationship with your family and friends and your passion, the thing you're willing to dedicate your life to and make big sacrifices for? Nathan Drake has dealt with obsession his entire life and we've seen it hurt his relationship. We've seen how between each game his relationship with Elena falls apart. There's something that happens there in that gap that was really interesting for us. What happened there? That's what we want to get into. Because maybe you can't have both. Maybe you can't have your family and that passion and the obsession."

Ah, the heart. How it tugs upon the hearts of the young and passionate. I can think of worse ways to close out the Uncharted games than with a kiss… sign me up, Naughty Dog! Now let’s hope Sony doesn’t screw it up.