page_title: Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
section_title: Character design
hierarchical_section_title: Nathan Drake (Uncharted) / Character design
caption_attribution_description: English: Nolan North speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Marvel Games", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: Nathan "Nate" Drake is the protagonist of the Uncharted video game series, developed by Naughty Dog. He appears in all mainline games: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, the spinoffs Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Uncharted: Fight for Fortune, the motion comic prequel series Uncharted: Eye of Indra by DC Comics, and other related media. A charismatic yet rebellious treasure hunter, the player controls Drake as he journeys across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. He is played through voice and motion capture by Nolan North, who influenced Drake's personality by ad-libbing segments of the character's dialogue.
  Naughty Dog based Drake's appearance and personality on daredevil Johnny Knoxville, actor Harrison Ford, and the heroes of pulp magazines, novels and films. To make him relatable, the character was dressed in jeans and a Henley long sleeve, and given an everyman persona; he is strong-willed, and often jokes and quips.
context_section_description: Illustrator and designer Kory Heinzen worked on pre-visualization, concept and character design on the video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, developed by Naughty Dog. Heinzen's initial concept differed from the finished character. The production staff drew inspiration from the pulp adventure genre when creating the video games in the Uncharted series, and based Drake on the stereotypical characters of adventure films and novels, giving him wit, resourcefulness, and strong principles. Naughty Dog wanted to highlight Drake's personality through his interactions with the environment during gameplay. To do this, they developed a wide range of animations for Drake, allowing him to display reactions and his snarky disposition in context. These animations were designed to be fluid and believable; they removed any animation that did not promote this fluidity or took a large amount of time to execute. The blended animation system in the game, with more than 30 animations comprising one movement, was implemented to make Drake a more relatable character.
  The Naughty Dog staff looked to several sources in creating Drake. His appearance and charisma were based on actor and daredevil Johnny Knoxville. Lead game designer Richard Lemarchand wanted Drake to reflect the "coolness and goodness" he saw in Knoxville. Series writer Amy Hennig described Drake as a gritty, charming mixture of actors Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis, with additional influence coming from romantic action-adventure heroes, including Cary Grant:
  ... we even went back to the earliest movie serials, movies from the '30s and the '50s, and the more recent revivals of the action-adventure genre in the '80s, and even recently with movies like National Treasure. There are certain traits that a lot of those characters have in common – that irreverent, roguish sense of humor, that charm.
  Lemarchand listed comic characters Doc Savage and Tintin, as well as Die Hard protagonist John McClane, as inspirations for the character. Drake's physical prowess was modeled on that of Savage, and his personality inspired by the vibrant color and globetrotting identity of Tintin.
  Naughty Dog wanted Drake to embody the everyman archetype. E. Daniel Arey, former Naughty Dog creative director, stated that "there is a fine line between jerk and lovable rogue", and that they developed Drake to be more human and accessible. "If a hero constantly shows their human side," said Arey, "we relate and forgive any seeming overconfidence because we’ve all been there." Neil Druckmann, lead designer of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, explained that Drake was meant to react to situations in the manner that the average player might. Hennig commented:
  ... when we set out to do Uncharted, we decided we wanted to tackle one of these beloved action-adventure games in the spirit of this whole tradition. We knew that in order to pull it off, we had to have a hero who was completely relatable, just a regular guy. So when people saw him and said "Why do I want to play a guy in t-shirt and jeans" that was a deliberate move on our part, to say look, he's just a guy. He's just like you and me.
  Josh Scherr, leader of the Drake's Fortune story sequence team, said that they created Drake as an "ordinary guy" with no special powers. Instead, Drake became visibly nervous at times, barely cleared objects while jumping, and stumbled while running. The characterizations were meant to show Drake as a frail character. He is not a master of hand-to-hand combat, and throws punches without style or skill. Sam Thompson, producer of Among Thieves, described Drake's martial arts abilities as "fallible." Sony Entertainment of America line producer Sam Thompson mused that Naughty Dog had created iconic characters before, including Crash Bandicoot. With Nathan Drake, however, the company wanted to produce a more average character, one who did not possess the same amount of confidence and who was more realistic and humble.
  Nolan North, the voice actor who played Drake, had a large role in defining the character's physical and vocal reactions
caption: Voice actor Nolan North
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