Hi all

I’m Richard Yap, European Product Manager at SCEE and I’m looking after the UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves DLC. I have some fantastic news to share with those of you who haven’t yet experienced the joys of this award winning and high-acclaimed PS3exclusive: you will be pleased to hear that a demo will be available on PSN store next week! This is your chance to revel in the much talked about action blockbuster. Make sure you download it, you won’t be disappointed.

For existing fans, well… we have a special treat in store for you as well. The guys at Naughty Dog have spoken to a few of their friends at Guerilla Games, Insomniac Games and Sucker Punch Productions, and have been able to a pull off something unique within the UNCHARTED 2 competitive multiplayer modes – their first DLC release is the UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves PlayStation Heroes Skin Pack!

The ‘PlayStation Heroes’ pack will give you the chance to run and gun through the UNCHARTED 2 online multiplayer maps with some Sony PlayStation favourites! The pack includes seven incredible character skins, where you can battle it out as good Cole, evil Cole or Zeke from inFamous; tear it up as Sgt Nathan Hale or a Chimera Hybrid soldier from the Resistance series; and defeat your enemies as a Helghast Trooper or Tomas “Sev” Sevchenko from Killzone 2.

Both will be available to download from PSN when the store is updated on the 28th January (the demo is, of course, free and the PlayStation Heroes pack will be €4.99). In the meantime check out the Heroes screenshots!

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Cheers

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The holidays are all about the giving spirit and we’re in a giving mood!

We’re holding another Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Double Cash weekend from Thursday, December 24, 2009, at 6:00 PM GMT (what time is it in my city) through Sunday, December 27, 2009, at 7:00 PM GMT (what time is it in my city?) you would earn double for all kills and medals. Yes, you read that right, you’ll be getting Double Cash for medals as well!

Oh, and our characters have gotten into the spirit of the season to celebrate the occasion!

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Today, Friday, December 18, 2009, at 10:00 AM PST (what time is it in my city?) you will be required to download an update to UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves.

Below is a list of what is different:

• Added Version number to game menu – should display 1.03 after this update
• Added Clan Tags – all players can now add a custom four letter Clan Tag in the Profile Menu (square) to display on-screen before their PSN ID
• Load times have been decreased significantly
• Added “Rematch” functionality
• Adjusted some Boosters for balance
• Addressed issue with Player’s Met screen in game menu and XMB displaying incorrectly
• Addressed issue with Double Cash not doubling medal cash rewards

We’ve also made a slew of other changes to improve player experience.

I spoke with our multiplayer lead designer, Justin, to give us the lowdown on what’s so great about a few of these updates. Justin quickly shot me back an e-mail with the following info:

Clan Tags is an addition we’ve been working for a while on. While it’s not full Clan support, we wanted to be sure that everybody can fly their Clan colors within UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer. Support for this is available to all players from the very beginning and can be edited within the player Profile menu – the same place where you choose your boosters.

We have significantly decreased load times . You will notice that the game loads into a map much faster after leaving the vote screen. This will help get players into games faster and keep people playing instead of waiting in the menu system.

We have also added Rematch functionality. At the end of a game, all players will be put back into matchmaking together, allowing you to play the same group of people over again. This decreases wait times, while still allowing people to leave after a match if they so desire. Again, this gets people into games faster and allows more time playing and less time in the menus – all of which is a very, very good thing!

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Those of you who frequent Naughtydog.com and keep up with the latest Uncharted 2 news may know that we’ve been running a poll on the site to receive feedback on future playlists for the Multiplayer mode of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

We’re running the same poll here on the European blog so Europeans can also have their say. We are listing five options in the poll, and below is a short breakdown about each one.

Plunder Only
All Plunder, all the time. No variations, nothing but capping treasure and shooting enemies.

Crushing: All Game Types
The Crushing variation on all maps with all game types. Crushing is a more hardcore version of our rule set where players have less health and no Boosters are active.

Crushing: Deathmatch Only
The Crushing variation on all maps in standard Deathmatch only.

Skilled Objectives
All Objective game types, but now with a Skill Level. Skill Levels are tied to each playlist, so all players would start with a Skill Level of 1 in this playlist, regardless of the Skill Level already achieved in the Ranked playlist.

Deathmatch Variants Only
All the Deathmatch variants including Sniper/Pistole, Pistols/Grenades, RPG’s, and Crushing.

We can’t guarantee that we’ll be releasing the most popular playlist, but we really want to know what you’d like to see, so let us know what you want – vote and be heard!

Vote for your favourite playlist in the comments below. If you have other suggestions feel free to let us know.

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The next time you start up UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves you will be required to download an update to the game.

Here’s the list of (most of) the changes we made. Some changes have been withheld to protect the innocent.

• Addressed respawn points when the artifact goes out of bounds in the Plunder gametype
• Dynamically adjust the win condition for fewer players during the course of a match
• Added features to deter players from voluntarily leaving during a match
• Added rate limit to “When a Chapter is Completed” Twitter event
• Fixed a display issue during letterboxing
• Fixed Danish Trophy description
• Fixed screenshot utility in standard definition resolutions
• Fixed the “Players Met” list not displaying recent players
• Addressed a variety of Multiplayer connectivity issues

BUT, that’s not all…

With Halloween on the horizon, we wanted to take this spooky occasion to announce that this weekend is also our first ever Double Cash Weekend in UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves. The Double Cash Weekend starts on Friday, October 30, 2009, at 6:00 PM GMT and continues until Monday, November 2, 2009, at 6:00 PM GMT.

In every match during Double Cash Weekend, you’ll be getting twice the Cash award you normally would for completing typical game actions – not medal-related currency awards – giving everyone a leg up in increasing their Rank for a limited time. That means this weekend is the perfect time to hop on to our Competitive and Co-op Multiplayer modes – whether you’re just a few levels away from the vaunted ‘X’ or this is just your first time online.

A bunch of Naughty Dogs will also be playing this weekend, so be on the lookout for the red Naughty Dog paw next to our PSN ID in the game and feel free to say hi, ask any questions or shoot at our characters. Stay sharp! There might be something spooky around the next corner…

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