Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’s oldest beta discovered

In news that has stunned the gaming community, a content creator known as TheKempy has found the oldest known demo of the first game in the Uncharted series, dating back to May 2007, just six months before its official release on PlayStation 3.

A historical treasure from the Naughty Dog archives, this copy offers a unique look into the early development phase of the game that changed the future of cinematic adventure games.

According to TheKempy’s analysis, the beta includes a number of elements that did not appear in the final game:

• A dedicated button for running: The player can press the circle button to make Drake run at full speed before this system is replaced by automatic running during combat.
• Ammo Crates: Scattered throughout the environment to collect ammunition from instead of relying on picking up enemies’ weapons like in the final version.
• Hostile spiders: Files within the version indicated the intention to add spiders as enemies, an idea that was canceled at the time but later returned in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.

The early version also reveals interesting visual and story differences:

• Elena Fisher had brown hair instead of the familiar blonde.
• Nathan Drake wore a strangely shaped necklace instead of the ring of Sir Francis Drake, which later became a pivotal symbol in the story.

This particular change suggests that the original story was quite different and perhaps the team was at that point looking for another family symbol before adopting the idea of the legendary ring.

This early version shows how Uncharted went from a traditional action project to a full-fledged cinematic experience that laid the groundwork for the identity of modern PlayStation games.

The version shown at Sony Gamer Day 2007 was full of experimental ideas, some of which remained in the game’s files as silent traces of the creative phase that preceded the birth of one of the greatest series in gaming history.

This rare discovery not only offers a technical look into the past, but also reminds us that Uncharted’s success was not a fluke but the result of years of experimentation, innovation, and evolution within Naughty Dog’s studio.

Do you think some of these ideas should have made it into the final version?