"That's just not something we want to do. As a company, it's kind of something where we've said that's not the kind of story we're trying to tell. When you put a second player in the game with you, it changes your feel of the game -- it's not you experiencing it, it's you with somebody else."

Boo...bad form.

Okay, fine. Then have the AI controlled character be unlocked for co-op play on the second playthrough. The integrity of the single player story won't be compromised, and then we can enjoy the game with a friend. I just started Uncharted 1, and as I'm playing I can't help but notice that there's a lost opportunity as Drake is accompanied by either an old man or female reporter. Or as my wife so delicately put it; "So I'm just supposed to sit here and watch these mofo's (sic) play my part for me?" Gamers grow up and get married guys. Having a single player only game is like going to the movies then not sitting with your date.

This is disappointing to hear that there's no co-op in the story , there goes my hopes & dreams down a drain

"We're so stuck up about our own story, that we're above co-operative gameplay", Seriously?

So this is why people call Uncharted pretensious..

So basically, they are saying that you can't "experience" a game co-operatively. I don't know about Naughty Dog, but most of my fondest "experiences" in gaming are in co-op. I don't want to play a movie. And not even movies are really meant as "solo" experiences.

We can at least hold out hope for split screen in whatever co-op mode they put in the game and let's also keep our fingers crossed that the co-op mode is more than 3 players.

They can´t keep those wonderful graphics while adding co-op to the main campaign. I bet they would have to cut some things. THey wouldnt have enought time to do it. My guess.

Weak... but understandable, I guess. I'mn sure they'll have co-op and siege mode (or something similar) in the multiplayer.

This has nothing to do about story, its all about how scripted the game is. The game expects you and the AI character to be an a certain place at a certain time or it won't be able to switch over to the cinematic camera, make ledges fall behind you, and floors fall beneath you. Its all about what you want to do with your game. You can go the Halo route and make your game more dynamic and spontaneous but less cinematic or restrict what the player(s) can do to make it more cinematic like Black Ops or Uncharted.

6 months ago my co-op experiences were limited to Timesplitters 2. Now every game that is played is our household must have a co-op mode. We love co-op. Thank you Capcom for RE5 and thank you Gearbox Software for Borderlands. You guys have shown us the way and we like it. Two very different stories and presentations and two very good single and co-op experiences.

I understand that co-op is not for every game, but then every game can't be awesome, can it? It would be great if Naughty Dog could build Nate 3 based on their single player story, but then allow one to replay it with an optional companion after beating it. Call me crazy, but I don't see how this could do anything less than benefit the franchise.

People, they're not saying there's going to be no co-op in the game, they're saying there's going to be no CAMPAIGN co-op! Uncharted had no online play or co-op of any kind. Uncharted 2 added a variety of online modes, including co-op, and Uncharted 3 is going to elaborate on those. We're going to get co-op. We're just not going to get campaign co-op. Jeez.

I already gathered that there won't be co-op in the story campaign, thats what i was disappointed about. I already know that there will be some kind of co-op in U3

--- Replying to rafoca -----
That has no bearing on LAN or online co-op, because each console can render separately.

--- Replying to Macrocephalus -----
And he's not saying that he won't buy Uncharted 3. He's just saying that co-op is a requirement and campaign co-op is the frosting. Nothing wrong with that.

I'd say it's disappointing, but they have a decent point. I absolutely loved the campaign in UC2 and got really into the story. If I had somebody else with me, it would have been fun, but almost a distraction and I probably wouldnt have sat there and enjoyed the cinematics and story as much.

That being said, I definitely agree that they should allow you to unlock it after a first playthrough. It really would make everybody happy. Keep the experience for the first play through, and give the gamers what they want.

unlocking co-op after first playthrough will not help people (like me) who spend most of their gaming time with their significant other. i wouldn't want to play through an entire game just so my wife can play with me. that's just silly. plus, we all know how it feels to be the person playing through a game for the first time while everyone else in your group is on their 2nd or 3rd playthrough. it's much better if you can play the campaign in co-op the first time.

I'm fine with a lack of campaign co-op if the co-op mode has more meat on it this time. I was left wanting a lot more back when I reviewed Uncharted 2.

--- Replying to Guest -----
Sorry, that was me. I guess I wasn't logged in. I do agree with you, smurphster, unlocking co-op isn't the best solution, I guess I'm just looking for a compromise. But you're right. I wouldn't want to play a game I just watched someone play through. I just know my wife started watching uncharted 1 and got flippin' furious, cinematics be damned.

Besides Smurphster's completely valid point about the delay, that just wouldn't work. The nature of the second character in Uncharted, who's sometimes there but sometimes isn't, is that he, and sometimes she, is a scripted sidekick for the player, meant to further story immersion, convey information and enable events and setpieces that couldn't take place at all if the second character were being controlled by another player.

Designing the game to enable campaign co-op would require many fundamental changes to the gameplay and the story. Naughty Dog is saying that the Uncharted campaign is a cinematic, story-based experience, and they want to maximize the impact of that for the player. That's the way it's been in the first two games, that's the way it is in the franchise. No surprise here.

Sure, I wish more games offered campaign co-op, but Uncharted offers a very specific — and awesome — campaign experience, and I sure as heck don't want them to do anything to dilute or change that. I'm really looking forward to playing the campaign in Resistance 3 with a friend, and there are probably some other co-op campaigns in the offing that I'll check out, but I'll get Uncharted for the Uncharted experience, not for something else.

For people who won't play anything that's not co-op (for whatever reason) fine! Different strokes for different folks and all. Nobody's forcing you to play Uncharted. Don't buy it. Play something else. Vote with your wallet.

Me? I vote for stuff like Uncharted… AND for lots of co-op games. I really don't understand the all-or-nothing exclusionary attitude some people seem to have on the subject.

I think unlocking a coop splitscreen/online component is great, and actually had that typed into the thread here yesterday but somehow my post didn't show up. If the developer wants you to enjoy the story and not have to rewrite large chunks of the engine in a sequel to accommodate another player, then thats their decision like its yours to buy the game or not. A simple solution to add onto the unlocking a coop mode would be to also allow the player to unlock it using a cheat code and maybe pop up a small confirmation box stating the game play will be somehow different with having a 2nd player join in. ALL online coop campaign games have that feeling of the person you're playing it with having already beaten the game (unless you're playing the day it comes out), its how Gears of War was ruined for me. For a split screen unlock mode after campaign completion, you could just go old school and pass the controller back and forth between lives/levels that way you could both enjoy the story before playing at the same time.

--- Replying to Shazoo -----
lol... you're clearly not married to a gamer if you think that would work!

the only games we've been able to play/pass with are tomb raider games and that's only because the puzzles can be very difficult. even then, there's a lot of "no, do this" or "no, the other way" or "damn it, just give me the controller"

just give me co-op from the start and give me a nasty warning that i'm going to "ruin" the story by playing it in co-op the first time. let me make that decision. besides, if co-op ruins your story, you're not doing it right.

--- Replying to txshurricane -----

In fact, it has, because it consumes the console horsepower anyway. I remember several devs quitting on campaign co-op at final stages of development because of these issues... even Peter Molyneux said they couldn´t make Fable 2 co-op with both players bringing their dogs because of framerate issues. It requires a lot of work to get it done.

--- Replying to rafoca -----
Well...I guess if that's what you're going to go with, I suppose you may have a valid point... With that in mind, why should developers bother giving reasons if we can just make speculative excuses for them?

--- Replying to smurphster -----
Sure it might not work for married couples or couples that like to game

You can A.) Happly playthrough the single player campaign by yourself (Which i'll most likely be doing if that was the case) or B.) Play it with a close friend...but knowing you you prob wouldn't do either of those anyway lol

--- Replying to smurphster -----

You're right sir. Although she does like to play games, I don't consider her a gamer since things like work, sleep, and eating come before games on her "To-do" list. She's more of an ipod gamer, she loves tap resort.

Uncharted 2 really was the best of both worlds - a great single player campaign and some cool co-op modes - so it should have made everybody happy. Hahaha - I know some people still won't buy it unless it has a co-op campaign. I can't think of any games that have a cinematic campaign as good as U2 and have co-op.

So many people with gaming wives.. At the risk of going off-topic, how do you motivate your wife back into co-op gaming when she refuses to play with you because you tend to "Focus Play" and she likes to "Wander".

I can't say I've ever been interested in Uncharted as a whole.. What irks me is that Co-op is argueably the best thing to happen to gaming since Pong, and having a Developer say otherwise feels like a slap in the face.

Four words for you: get used to exploring.



Uh, OK, except Naughty Dog said nothing of the kind. They just said that for the Uncharted style of campaign, single-player is best. That's basically like saying that for single-player gameplay, single-player is best, which is obviously true. That has nothing to do with the question of whether single-player or co-op gameplay is better, which IMO would be like comparing apples to vice-grip pliers. They're just different things, even when you're talking single-player versus co-op campaigns.

That's exactly the rub. The campaign co-op in Resistance: The Fall of Man, for example, was a lot of fun, but adding a second player really didn't make a lot of sense (s/he played no role in the story and was never mentioned or acknowledged) and except for a couple vehicle sections in which the second player could take the place of an NPC, I don't remember there being any special or unique functions played by the second player. Nor was the campaign even remotely as cinematic, cool and interesting as U2's — and I say that as a bigger fan of the Resistance franchise than I am of the Uncharted franchise. (Rented both Uncharteds, bought both Resistances.)

I do think you could theoretically design a co-op campaign just as amazing as U2's, but I think it would be a lot harder, because every big action set piece would have to be designed around two people working together, and if you really went all-out the way Naughty Dog does, it probably wouldn't be playable by one person and an AI, because the AI would just be too stupid, so you'd probably have serious problems selling enough copies to pay for the development budget. I mean, I enjoy campaign co-op as much as the next person, but other than married gamer couples (and gamer couples who live together) how many people can make the kind of regular and concentrated time commitment to play through an entire campaign together? Non-campaign co-op modes, like Resistance 2's, are much more flexible — people can play apart and together as the mood takes them and as they're able.

Why not just make a special Co-op campaign? Worked for Splinter Cell.

-------Macrocephalus -----------

Some people (like me) are still fairly young and have little/older siblings to play with.

--- Replying to Macrocephalus -----
If we're going to start holding video games to the "making sense" standard, then we're going to have a much smaller selection.

The more things they put in the game the more it consumes horsepower. It is even more when you add split-screen to the mix. That´s why Bungie should be praised for all Halo games, as well as Epic for Gears of War.

That´s why games like Fight Night Round look so awesome and UFC doesn´t. FNR is much simples if you ask me.

As for your question, I dont have any answer. But I do know that if a dev say "we can´t make this awesome game with these awesome graphics, at least in this time frame, if we add co-op campaign to the mix" will cause a lot of fanboy fights regarding the console power, xbox 360 x Ps3 etc. And devs would never do that.

Co-op FTW!!