Since we’re going through all the trouble of replaying the original Uncharted trilogy on stream, it only seems right to go further back and play some of their earlier experimentation with stories and games coming together with Jak II.
If you’re curious about what happened between the development cycles of The Precursor Legacy and Jak II, to explain the shift in tone and gameplay that the series went through, the answer is GTA 3, which more or less pioneered and popularized the urban open world that Rockstar’s signature series is known for the world over.
Whether this was chasing the trends or simply following the dev team’s energy is impossible to say. Whatever the case was, it’s a truism of that era in game development that sequels sell, almost regardless of whether the original game sold well. If I had to guess, I would assume that’s why this is a Jak and Daxter game rather than a new IP.
I posited a what-if, at the end of my run with The Precursor Legacy, where instead of this they kept the tone and feel of the original game. Part of me is still interested in the hypothetical, but honestly, if this is what they were interested in making, and I have no reason to suspect it isn’t, we’re better off with Jak II than with a company that feels locked into a style that they don’t have interest in.
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