Introducing Katherine Marlowe in UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception

Last week, a few of us headed up to San Francisco to attend GDC 2011 for a busy week of sessions and an extremely well-attended press event. With the PlayStation.Blog blogger lounge at the W hotel filled to near capacity, we presented two new aspects to UNCHARTED 3: Drake's Deception - gameplay in stereoscopic 3D and the main antagonist, Katherine Marlowe.

It's awesome to now be able to talk about this as the press embargo lifted earlier this morning -- apart from our blog post here and on the PlayStation.Blog, be sure to visit any of the numerous publications who attended for their take on the event and the reveals.

The press event started off with a demo of the UNCHARTED 3 burning chateau gameplay sequence, but it was presented in stereoscopic 3D for the first time ever outside of the studio. As I had mentioned over on the PlayStation.Blog, I feel that with this small snippet of gameplay we’ve proven that we’re able to perfectly retain all of the spectacular visuals and effects that you’ve come to expect from Naughty Dog and UNCHARTED into the 3D presentation. During interviews Evan Wells and Richard Lemarchand pointed out that, in our experiences within the studio so far, playing in 3D provides some gameplay benefits, such as improved aiming around corners and an excellent read on depth for all traversal sequences, no matter how tricky. Unfortunately, there is no video available of UNCHARTED 3 gameplay running in 3D right now - you'll probably have to attend an event where UNCHARTED 3 is being shown in 3D or possibly when UNCHARTED 3 releases this November. In the meantime you’ll have to rely on impressions from all the press coverage to get an idea of how our 3D gameplay was received from the attending media.

The major reveal during our press event was unveiling the main antagonist Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan will face throughout UNCHARTED 3. We'd like to introduce you to Katherine Marlowe.

Without a doubt, Marlowe is going to be one tough customer to deal with, and I think it's clear she's used to getting what she wants, and won't let anyone get in the way. Recapping some of the background information on Marlowe we provided on the PlayStation.Blog, Katherine Marlowe is the coldly calculating leader of a secret society whose roots date back over four hundred years to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. She has a long-standing rivalry with Nathan Drake over Sir Francis Drake’s ring – something they both contend is rightfully theirs and is also the key to an ancient mystery. It's obvious from the cutscene we embedded above that Marlowe is a much more cerebral enemy than Drake has confronted in the past, using both psychological and physical tactics to get what she is after. Marlowe also has the assistance of her team of highly-trained agents in this secret society – they are far more elusive and dangerous than the hired guns Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan have faced before!

We’ve uploaded a set of stills from the cutscene, a high-res render of Katherine Marlowe and concept art of the agents and thugs Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan will face in UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception to our Flickr page - check them out!

Don't forget to keep checking back on the UNCHARTED 3 tag on NaughtyDog.com to keep up to date on the latest UNCHARTED 3 news.

UPDATE
Our PR team sent me a bunch of links leading to online articles written about our GDC press event. I've put all the links below so you've got one easy place to check out all the different articles and impressions.

USA Today
G4TV
GameTrailers
GameInformer
IGN
GameSpot
Joystiq (Marlowe)
Joystiq (3D preview)
Kotaku
GamesRadar
Digital Trends
Escapist Magazine
PlayStation Lifestyle
Venture Beat
1UP.com

I'll add more links as I spot them.