Nathan Drake has become a star on Sony's PlayStation 3 and Naughty Dog's Uncharted series has sold 17 million copies world wide as of April. Drake is a big reason behind the series' success.
Bend Studios' Uncharted: Golden Abyss attempted to introduce gamers to a new female protagonist, Marisa Chase, but she was not well received by test groups, according to the developer and reported via Joystiq.
In a written entry on Gamasutra Postmortem column, Bend Studios' John Gavin said that the new protagonist was, "almost universally, focus testers hated Chase, the game's new female protagonist."
"We had done a thorough job vetting actresses in our casting process, which took weeks and involved dozens of readings -- including an audition where prospective actresses read with Nolan North," Gavin wrote. "Everyone agreed that Christine Lakin was awesome, so she wasn't the problem. The problem, we discovered, was the writing. In the script, Chase's character was a bit of a smart ass and a little sarcastic. Christine read these lines as intended and riffed on them, making Chase a little edgy."
According to Gavin the testers found Chase to be to be a wimp and a whiner. The development team realized that no matter how they felt about the character and her interactions with Drake, they had to fix the issue. He then addressed in the written entry how they fixed her character.
"By making her less aggressive and critical. In the original script she told Drake that charcoal rubbings were "old school," in the revision, she told him they were cool," Gavin wrote. "Focus testers' complaints about Chase being a "whiner" were spot on. We strengthened her character by changing a lot of those responses."
He also said that the testers were feeding off of how Drake was responding to Chase during the game. Drake appeared to be annoyed with her in the game. So Bend Studios changed the way he reacted to her.
"We also found that focus testers were taking their cue from Drake," Gavin wrote, "Because he sounded annoyed with Chase for constantly getting into trouble, focus testers became annoyed with her as well. So when we revised Chase, we also revised Drake, making him react to her in a more positive way."
Did you like Chase's character? Do you think Chase was still whiny or a wimp? Watch the game's trailer and comment below.