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Nathan Drake

Nathan Drake ( Morgan) is a character and the protagonist of the Uncharted franchise, most notably in the 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 spin-offs 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 and good-natured 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 on 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. The designers focused on giving him realistic reactions to his environment; for example, he stumbles while running, barely clears objects during leaps, and recognizes the absurdity of the situations in which he finds himself.

The design and personality of Drake have drawn comparisons to other video game and film characters, such as Lara Croft and Indiana Jones. Many reviewers have called Drake a likable and believable character, and noted that he is a rare example of a physically attractive character who is not hypermasculine.

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.

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, said 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, 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:

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