Naughty Dog’s Creative director Amy Hennig discussed Uncharted 3′s theme and challenges in a recent interview. The desert theme emerged from Naughty Dogs team wanting to creatively and technologically challenge themselves. Organic elements like sand, water and fire are “technically difficult to credibly render with animation”
Game director Justin Richmond explained that Uncharted 3 will feel more open than previous titles. “We’re not an open-world game, we’re never going to be an open-world game. It’s still up in the air how much gameplay we’re going to let you wander around. But we’re never going to let you just ride a thousand miles off into the middle of nowhere. Ultimately the feel we want to get is, yeah, you’re lost in the desert. So it needs to feel like that. But it’s not going to feel open-world.”