After finishing the game there are two things about the story that are really bugging me.

Am I missing something here?

Here's a plot hole. Why didn't the bad guys just coat all of their freaking bullets with the hallucinogenic agent.

Drake gets hit, slumps over, and a dude walks up to him and slits his throat.

There were also multiple instances where Talbot could have just shot Nate and Sully.

@thehexeditor said:

Here's a plot hole. Why didn't the bad guys just coat all of their freaking bullets with the hallucinogenic agent.

Drake gets hit, slumps over, and a dude walks up to him and slits his throat.

There were also multiple instances where Talbot could have just shot Nate and Sully.

Sure sure, but this is at least something you can suspend disbelief on. Its typical movie badguy stuff. Hell if you want to bring the whole Uncharted series into realistic doubt you can do so with two words "Google Earth." I'm not looking to judge realism (blue dude and magic spiders),

I'm more concerned that some of the storytelling feels inconsistent with itself and that they seems to tease plot points that they don't follow up on.

I believe your second thing is suppose to be explained by the bugs. Nate and Sully are curious what could of done this to someone who just got here and then enter bug sprawl shortly after. I would assume the designers would think you would put these two together without Nate and Sully saying it. As far as the first question I don't really have a clue.

@daggon55: The bad guy in France was killed by the spiders

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

The biggest plot hole in my opinion is WHATE IS NATHAN DRAKE'S REAL NAME?????

@Yanngc33 said:

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

I thought about this, but here's the thing, the drug influence only matters if Drake is under it. This is because the game takes place from Drakes point of view exclusively, they all do (there's never any scene in any of the series that Drake is not directly involved in). So when Cutter shoots Talbot the only person under the influence at that point is Cutter, so it is not possible that this scene is a hallucination because Drake would have to be drugged and from the effects we see later, that is clearly not the case.

@daggon55 said:

@Yanngc33 said:

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

I thought about this, but here's the thing, the drug influence only matters if Drake is under it. This is because the game takes place from Drakes point of view exclusively, they all do (there's never any scene in any of the series that Drake is not directly involved in). So when Cutter shoots Talbot the only person under the influence at that point is Cutter, so it is not possible that this scene is a hallucination because Drake would have to be drugged and from the effects we see later, that is clearly not the case.

Yeah you're right, that's pretty crazy then, it makes no sense

Talbot is obviously a wizard. Notice how many fucked up things occur around him?

They also never address the playing card that is found in Cutter's coat after he jumps off the burning tower

The whole secret society in general is kind of dropped. We never really understood why Marlow and Talbot were looking for this thing and what they planned on doing with it. They also seemed to imply a relationship between Marlow and Sully at the beginning of the game, but other than the flashback it's never really touched on again. I really enjoyed the game, and I've been looking forward to it since the second, but it seems like they started a lot of different threads in the story that just never really went anywhere at all.

@Yanngc33 said:

@daggon55: The bad guy in France was killed by the spiders

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

The biggest plot hole in my opinion is WHATE IS NATHAN DRAKE'S REAL NAME?????

It doesn't matter what his real name is, he earned the name Drake by just being who he is. He chose to save Marlo, or at least try, further solidifying that fact.

will be answered in the forthcoming "Secrets Revealed" DLC that'll cost 19.99 and will take an hour and come with one bronze trophy. The answer to Talbot's weird story anomalies?

@ninjakiller said:

@Yanngc33 said:

@daggon55: The bad guy in France was killed by the spiders

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

The biggest plot hole in my opinion is WHATE IS NATHAN DRAKE'S REAL NAME?????

It doesn't matter what his real name is, he earned the name Drake by just being who he is. He chose to save Marlo, or at least try, further solidifying that fact.

Sort of made me wish for an end of game twist where Drake is a mental patient in an asylum and all that was a dream

@Pr1mus said:

Talbot is obviously a wizard. Notice how many fucked up things occur around him?

Doesn't Drake actually call him a wizard at one point?

@Yanngc33 said:

@ninjakiller said:

@Yanngc33 said:

@daggon55: The bad guy in France was killed by the spiders

As for Talbot... I just filled in the wiki page on what I understood from the game but there is a possibility that he was never shot since each time the person who shoots him is under the influence of the drug.

The biggest plot hole in my opinion is WHATE IS NATHAN DRAKE'S REAL NAME?????

It doesn't matter what his real name is, he earned the name Drake by just being who he is. He chose to save Marlo, or at least try, further solidifying that fact.

Sort of made me wish for an end of game twist where Drake is a mental patient in an asylum and all that was a dream

What like Buffy? It wasn't the series finale, but an episode somewhere in there just came out and showed that she was just a nutso girl locked in an insane asylum.

I thought maybe Talbot sucks the life force out of people to heal himself or something, hence the decomposed henchman. I'm guessing it was probably the spiders though. Seems like the spiders are like the scarabs in The Mummy, they aren't really explained either.

@thehexeditor said:

Here's a plot hole. Why didn't the bad guys just coat all of their freaking bullets with the hallucinogenic agent.

Drake gets hit, slumps over, and a dude walks up to him and slits his throat.

There were also multiple instances where Talbot could have just shot Nate and Sully.

Probably because they are in short supply of the fear toxin, hence their search for the source of the hallucinogen.

Huh. I couldn't figure out what the decomposed guy was about either, but I guess spiders make sense. Sort of a bizarre thing to emphasize, though, considering the spiders were relevant only to a few isolated set pieces.

Maybe I missed something but why did Talbot run from Drake in Yemen when they were all sitting at the lil cafe after the hallucination?

@hbkdx12: he was on his way to capture sully, and drake was following him to try and stop him.

Bullets get hot, just rubbing something on them wouldn't necessarily work.

The body was from the spiders, personally I though it was very weak since it's found so far away. Also I assumed that Nathan and Sully were being dumb since to me it said that the bad guys had been there before. I mean they'd been working on this for what was it, 400 years?

Drake's real name doesn't matter except that it kinda makes the first game BS.

The whole secret society voodoo stuff seemed to have been massively axed.

More importantly, wtf did they want with some random ass hallucinogen when they already had a drug that caused people to follow orders???

@Crash_Happy said:

Drake's real name doesn't matter except that it kinda makes the first game BS.

Maybe, but I think Nate truly does believe himself to be a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, and in the end thats what really matters.

Did anybody get a "The Mummy" vibe off the game? The spiders acted very much like the scarab beetles and Salim's character reminded me a lot of the Medjai played by Oded Fehr. Also Drake's desert outfit looks exactly like Brendan Fraser's character. Not to say any of this is a bad thing, I love The Mummy and Uncharted is always using movies as source material.

@DrCornwalliz: Also the horseback scene were you chasing a convoy on a horse in a cliff with a rocket launcher, was a lot like Raiders of the Lost Ark only with 10 times more action.

More like Last Crusade with flashbacks and saving older friend from the convoy why on horseback.

@Legend said:

@Pr1mus

Talbot is obviously a wizard. Notice how many fucked up things occur around him?

Makes sense. Here's your answer.

I'd totally accept that he's a wizard or something crazy and supernatural, but thats not consistent with the end of the story. If he's damn wizard, why does he attack you with just a knife at the end of the game.

I have a feeling Talbot might be the Djinn they allude to. And he wants Marlowe to open up his lamp because right now he is held back (or something?) in a human body and can't go back to his true form.

It reminded me a bit of LOST and the Smoke Monster/Man in Black wanting to leave the island, needing pawns to do the dirty work for him. His reaction to Marlowe dying(?) was very emotional because it was his best chance at finally escaping. Also similar to Shadow of the Colossus, with Dormin telling Wander to release Dormin's 15 horcruxes (that's right I said it) so that he can escape the Forbidden Lands.

I definitely see parallels there. It explains some of Drake's Deception's supernatural questions that remain unanswered.

Heh, come to think of it, perhaps being a fan of LOST/SotC makes me more accepting of these supposed "plot holes", ie: not answering every little thing, allowing conversations (such as this one) to take place, and for theories to form. Personally, I'd much rather have a story leave bits and pieces up the viewer's interpretations. Mulholland Drive would suck with Director's Commentary :P

Cool.

@RainVillain said:

I have a feeling Talbot might be the Djinn they allude to. And he wants Marlowe to open up his lamp because right now he is held back (or something?) in a human body and can't go back to his true form.

It reminded me a bit of LOST and the Smoke Monster/Man in Black wanting to leave the island, needing pawns to do the dirty work for him. His reaction to Marlowe dying(?) was very emotional because it was his best chance at finally escaping. Also similar to Shadow of the Colossus, with Dormin telling Wander to release Dormin's 15 horcruxes (that's right I said it) so that he can escape the Forbidden Lands.

I definitely see parallels there. It explains some of Drake's Deception's supernatural questions that remain unanswered.

Heh, come to think of it, perhaps being a fan of LOST/SotC makes me more accepting of these supposed "plot holes", ie: not answering every little thing, allowing conversations (such as this one) to take place, and for theories to form. Personally, I'd much rather have a story leave bits and pieces up the viewer's interpretations. Mulholland Drive would suck with Director's Commentary :P

Cool.

I don't think Uncharted is at all like SotC or LOST in terms of storytelling. Look at SotC, its storytelling is ambiguous by design, there's almost no exposition, you only have a vague idea of the charater motivations and history its all very intentional and meant to give you some room for interpretation. Now look at Uncharted, it very clearly explains who the characters are and what motivates them, there's very little ambiguity by design. It's based on adventure serials (like indiana jones was) these are stories that are meant to be self contained. Each Uncharted story stands on its own, its not designed to tease out a greater narrative like LOST. So in my opinion this contained story structure makes Talbot feel incomplete, like there's part of his story they just didn't tell (or maybe couldn't). I don't get the impression at all they he is meant to be open to interruption, because how could he be, he's not going to come back or be a significant narrative point ever again. I suppose you can say that I don't know that for sure, but I'm almost certain I'm right based on the series, in either of the sequels the only continuity is the main characters, just like a classic adventure serial.

I also like ambiguous storytelling when its done well, but I would say Uncharted is very clearly not that kind of storytelling.

@daggon55:

Yeah I guess I didn't mean to say that it was deliberate, ("let's leave out detail about Talbot so they think about it!") but rather that I found it fun not knowing his origin/ambitions.

@daggon55: I will direct you over to the Naughty Dog forums where Amy has actually answered a ton of story related questions.

http://forums.naughtydog.com/t5/General-Discussion/More-Explanations-via-Amy-Hennig-Regarding-Talbot-SPOILERS/m-p/630275

http://forums.naughtydog.com/t5/General-Discussion/Tarot-Card-Explanation-via-Amy-Hennig-SPOILERS/td-p/627565

You can search there some more if you like. : )

Hope some of it helps!

@Cloudenvy: It kind of sucks that she has to answer these questions herself and that they weren't really explained in the game.

stupid, every single hero movie or game ever is filled to the brim with bullshit like this, it cannot work any other way.

reality is people die all the fucking time in shit like this.

Video game stories with a lot of these highly anticipated releases are always sketchy and I never expect them to cover everything they touch on. I simply play it to completion, say "Oh they decided to stop it there? Interesting", and then I put it back in the box and walk away.

Also, what was the deal with those spiders and that zombified dead dude you find in the chateau? Didn't seem like they were really explained or tied very well with the narrative.

MAJOR SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO SPOIL END GAME

Yeah I felt like some things were missing, like the TC, I found it odd how the British guy you are with at the start of the game seems to wander off. I honestly got the impression he was going to be another double agent type deal where you get sold out, however this did not happen. I don't really understand why him and Chloe (I think thats her name, the woman from Uncharted 2) disapear completley from the story line after Syria (I know the dude has a broken leg but there is zero mention of them in the end game).

I also found parts of the game (such as sneaking on the plane was pretty much the same as getting on board the train, going into the city at the end, same as Uncharted 2, enter and escape a breaking lost city?) felt kind of recycled from Uncharted 2. Also I feel kind of bugged by a lack of end game boss, you have a mele fight but it does not really come to much.

Do not get me wrong, I love this series and this game is really good. I like the pacing for the most part (like the chase through the city after the villan guy) and I really liked how Sulley was more involved. However the game seems to ellude to some areas (like Sulley being killed off, yet he just reapears and Drake just goes with it, or how Drake gets called out on him not being called that then suddenly it gets dropped from the story, it would have been interesting to see them play about with whether Drake is actually a trustworthy character and how trustworthy Sulley is).

I really like the game but it just feels like some of the story just gets ideas thrown in then not mentioned again, sort of like this was rushed to get out for Christmas. Once again, I will say I enjoyed this game, but I too was a little disapointed.

@wsowen02 said:

They also never address the playing card that is found in Cutter's coat after he jumps off the burning tower

I completely forgot about this.

the story as a whole felt like it was missing direction, maybe its cause im assuming that this was the third installment in a trilogy. After finishing the game, it clearly isn't. U3 felt like an "episode", the other two games felt like movies, if you know what i mean

also yeh, maybe a bit explanation and exposition wouldve been nice. Like that tarot card thing, you can't just zoom in on it, and have the characters go ohshit. and not explain it, i bet it left a lot of people confused

So I read what Amy had to say about the whole Talbot situation and quite frankly I think it's a cop out. Yes it's a mysterious organization that deals in fear but... I dunno where I'm going but I just feel like they could have done something more with Talbot. They weren't afraid to have some mystical stuff in the first 2 so I'm surprised they shed away from it in this game. I enjoyed the experience but it was not as good as 2 from a story perspective.

@SuperCycle said:

The whole secret society in general is kind of dropped. We never really understood why Marlow and Talbot were looking for this thing and what they planned on doing with it. They also seemed to imply a relationship between Marlow and Sully at the beginning of the game, but other than the flashback it's never really touched on again. I really enjoyed the game, and I've been looking forward to it since the second, but it seems like they started a lot of different threads in the story that just never really went anywhere at all.

Well the story pretty much implies that Sully was an outside man, hired to get the key and probably get them in the building at night (although they don't seem like they need the help.) He said that in the bar scene after Sully saved Drake. The way that Drake and Sully are both saying things like 'Who are these people". If you remember that when the 3 guys meet up with Chloe right before going underground, Drake is asking questions about these people. I thought it was weird because I assumed the history between Drake and Sully, and Marlowe's people was more, that Marlow was trying to get the ring, and Drake trying to get the decoder for years. Then I realized they haven't seen these people for twenty years since they first met.

That was a really long and pointless explanation for: Sully had a job and was getting some action on the side from Marlowe, and thy hadn't seen each other since that day.

@hbkdx12 said:

Maybe I missed something but why did Talbot run from Drake in Yemen when they were all sitting at the lil cafe after the hallucination?

They found Sully and he left to go kidnap him, or they had already did and Talbot left to go interrogate him, and then Drake chased him.

Overall I was disappointed by the story, it felt liked it lacked focus, it mentioned a lot of things but never went into focus with any of them. We never learned much about the secret society, the whole djinn in a the bottle felt completely rushed, in UC2, the Chintamani stone (or however you spell it) was well though out, you learned more about it, it had mystery to it, but was well enough explained, Lazaravich'ssssss intentions were clear, why and what he wanted the stone for was given to us. All we know about his magic bottle is that it causes hallucinations, Marlowe and her people REALLY want it, but why? they seem to have the whole hallucination thing covered. it just felt like it came out of nowhere to contrive a reason that we really had to stop Marlowe, where as UC2 felt more thought out. Also I was extremely disappointed the game didn't go moe into the who "why does Drake do what he does, whats the point of this" and the Sully/Drake relationship.

Oh and chapter 2 made me want an entire game of that. It could be really good if handled right.

@Crash_Happy said:

Bullets get hot, just rubbing something on them wouldn't necessarily work.

The body was from the spiders, personally I though it was very weak since it's found so far away. Also I assumed that Nathan and Sully were being dumb since to me it said that the bad guys had been there before. I mean they'd been working on this for what was it, 400 years?

Drake's real name doesn't matter except that it kinda makes the first game BS.

The whole secret society voodoo stuff seemed to have been massively axed.

More importantly, wtf did they want with some random ass hallucinogen when they already had a drug that caused people to follow orders???

Fuck. Yes. it bugged me so much that they never explained why the society wants the hallucinogen so much, when they already seem to have the covered.

@N7 said:

@JohnLocke: Cutter and Chloe bailed after shit got reel.

Oh yeah for sure, I got why they left being part of the team at that point. But I dont understand why Cutter was given some interesting development ideas then just dropped out of the blue (and as I say, why there is no mention of them at the end, surely they would be interested in seeing what happened in the story).

But yeah a lot of other people here are covering my disapointment with certain aspects of the plot.

Let me start off by saying I love Uncharted 3. It's easily my game of the year so far and I don't see any other game beating it (except maybe AssBro: Revelations, but that's a big maybe).

Having said that, I feel like the series has become a slave to the set pieces. Those are the parts everyone talked about with the second game. Whenever they showed, talked about or teased Uncharted 3, they used set pieces. Yes, the set pieces are spectacular, but it seems like they spent so much time perfecting those that they didn't get around to much else. They drop in a lot of potentially interesting plot lines that never go anywhere. The story jerks around to get from set piece to set piece as quickly as possible.

Some things that feel rushed or wasted: Nathan's history (there are hints, but nothing ever comes of them). What's with that secret society, is it really just Marlowe (with Talbot and other henchmen)? Speaking of Talbot, is he a wizard?! Chloe and Cutter are on board, more so than Elena, until Cutter breaks his legs and they both suddenly disappear without further mention. The French connection (pardon the pun) literally comes out of nowhere, and goes nowhere. What happened exactly between Elena and Nathan (granted, I like that they don't spell this one out completely).

I just get the feeling that they wrote an awesome story, then looked for ways to insert a bunch of cool set pieces, and then had to cut out parts of the actual story to make room for those set pieces.

On top of that, most of the set pieces feel very familiar. Mostly because they are very similar to ones from Uncharted 2, sometimes because they're ripped straight from blockbuster movies. The one exception, to me, was the cruise ship. To be fair, it's difficult to create spectacular action in a completely novel manner, and I wouldn't mind as much if the game didn't feel like it revolved completely around those set pieces.

To end on a positive note, there are also a couple of very specific things they did much better this time around. This game's "blue guys" weren't as offensive as those in the previous installments. I never minded their paranormal nature in Uncharted 1 and 2, but found them a cheap trick to change up the gameplay (for the worse). The flame guys in Uncharted 3, real or not, are still kind of assholes. Some of those encounters really pushed me to the brink of rage-quitting. Luckily, they don't show up as much as in the previous games.

I also really really really really really like how they handled the final boss(es). In Uncharted 1, the final fight was about destroying cover whilst being assaulted by an overpowered gun and a bunch of mooks. In Uncharted 2, the final fight was about taking down a bullet sponge with a shottie (I think, or an AK?) who throws bags of grenades. This time around, the bad guys are dealt with either by the game itself (through cutscenes) or in hand-to-hand combat with a very light QTE coating. This felt much more appropriate for the kind of game Uncharted is.

@shenstra said:

Let me start off by saying I love Uncharted 3. It's easily my game of the year so far and I don't see any other game beating it (except maybe AssBro: Revelations, but that's a big maybe).

Having said that, I feel like the series has become a slave to the set pieces. Those are the parts everyone talked about with the second game. Whenever they showed, talked about or teased Uncharted 3, they used set pieces. Yes, the set pieces are spectacular, but it seems like they spent so much time perfecting those that they didn't get around to much else. They drop in a lot of potentially interesting plot lines that never go anywhere. The story jerks around to get from set piece to set piece as quickly as possible.

Some things that feel rushed or wasted: Nathan's history (there are hints, but nothing ever comes of them). What's with that secret society, is it really just Marlowe (with Talbot and other henchmen)? Speaking of Talbot, is he a wizard?! Chloe and Cutter are on board, more so than Elena, until Cutter breaks his legs and they both suddenly disappear without further mention. The French connection (pardon the pun) literally comes out of nowhere, and goes nowhere. What happened exactly between Elena and Nathan (granted, I like that they don't spell this one out completely).

I just get the feeling that they wrote an awesome story, then looked for ways to insert a bunch of cool set pieces, and then had to cut out parts of the actual story to make room for those set pieces.

On top of that, most of the set pieces feel very familiar. Mostly because they are very similar to ones from Uncharted 2, sometimes because they're ripped straight from blockbuster movies. The one exception, to me, was the cruise ship. To be fair, it's difficult to create spectacular action in a completely novel manner, and I wouldn't mind as much if the game didn't feel like it revolved completely around those set pieces.

To end on a positive note, there are also a couple of very specific things they did much better this time around. This game's "blue guys" weren't as offensive as those in the previous installments. I never minded their paranormal nature in Uncharted 1 and 2, but found them a cheap trick to change up the gameplay (for the worse). The flame guys in Uncharted 3, real or not, are still kind of assholes. Some of those encounters really pushed me to the brink of rage-quitting. Luckily, they don't show up as much as in the previous games.

I also really really really really really like how they handled the final boss(es). In Uncharted 1, the final fight was about destroying cover whilst being assaulted by an overpowered gun and a bunch of mooks. In Uncharted 2, the final fight was about taking down a bullet sponge with a shottie (I think, or an AK?) who throws bags of grenades. This time around, the bad guys are dealt with either by the game itself (through cutscenes) or in hand-to-hand combat with a very light QTE coating. This felt much more appropriate for the kind of game Uncharted is.

Yeah, I agree with you on some of the game design (like not spelling out everything between Uncharted 2 and 3) and I like they did not over use the blue guy element this time (nor the over use of the dudes with the chain gun thing, the ones who take a lot of damage, the brutes are they called?). Also I enjoyed the variation in areas you go to (the ship really is good as well as the actual ship yard was very well presented if not a little too challenging at parts). I think you nailed it on the head with the idea of the great story then cutting parts to get a coherent set piece and pace of the game. It is a shame as I really would have liked to explore more of the Nathan Drake back story and his relationship to the other characters and them with each other (like the game hints at Drake not being trustworthy and the same of Sulley but this gets dropped).

I am not sure why they have gone with the "lets kill a main cast member, lol, j/k, kidding" idea at the end (with Elena in 2 and Sulley in 3). I like both those characters so there is an attachment there, but if they keep doing that line it will ruin the game.

Hopefully there will be a bit of time now between this and Uncharted 4 (if at all) with some great DLC content for Uncharted 3. Then spend some time refining and developing where the series can go and make it about the characters and the story with history rather than "so whats left in transport for us to make a big scene then destroy it", given a plane, train, and ship have all been given this treatment.

@JohnLocke: Oh John Locke, did you really come back from the dead to play video games instead of doing empiricist philosophy? Oh why are you wasting your talent!

@ectoplasma said:

@JohnLocke: Oh John Locke, did you really come back from the dead to play video games instead of doing empiricist philosophy? Oh why are you wasting your talent!

I know, I just ended up typing the same few numbers into a computer in the same sequence every few minutes.

@TheHT said:

@Pr1mus said:

Talbot is obviously a wizard. Notice how many fucked up things occur around him?

Doesn't Drake actually call him a wizard at one point?

No, Drake calls Sully "Mr. Wizard" just as they're approaching the chateau (i.e. the beginning of Chapter Six).

@wasteguru said:

@Crash_Happy said:

Drake's real name doesn't matter except that it kinda makes the first game BS.

Maybe, but I think Nate truly does believe himself to be a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, and in the end thats what really matters.

Did anybody get a "The Mummy" vibe off the game? The spiders acted very much like the scarab beetles and Salim's character reminded me a lot of the Medjai played by Oded Fehr. Also Drake's desert outfit looks exactly like Brendan Fraser's character. Not to say any of this is a bad thing, I love The Mummy and Uncharted is always using movies as source material.

Before finishing the game i watched all three Mummy movies, just because the game reminded me of them so much.

They could have gone much further with Talbot and his "magic". I'm ok with him being a human with a bag of tricks, but for some time I was expecting him to be a djinn that was bound to human form or something like that. Way back when it was revealed that this game would be set in the desert I thought " oh, mummies", but when it took place in the middle east I instantly thought of Djinns and what a great fit it would be. The Uncharted games have always tackled great myths (like Shambhala in the second one), so I wish they'd used more of the desert and djinn myths in this game.