Naughty Dog has ‘matured’ past including Donut Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Last month, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End went Gold – the game was officially completed and ready for distribution exclusively for PS4 on May 10th. Uncharted enthusiasts should take note that the game will be releasing without a feature that the previous Uncharted games had.

Donut Drake, the heftier version of the Uncharted protagonist Nathan Drake, will not be making a return in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Up until now, the playable skin was featured in the solo campaign for all three entries and made an appearance in the multiplayer modes in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.

According to Naughty Dog's creative director, Neil Druckmann, the team developing Uncharted 4 had 'matured' beyond including Donut Drake.

"I didn't want to have a laugh at someone’s expense," explained Druckmann to GamesRadar. "I thought we’d matured beyond that."

While the team had 'matured' past that point, a model for Donut Drake had been created and was actually placed in the game before being pulled.

"We actually had the whole thing modeled and in there," said Druckmann, before going on to say that the team, "decided to make the call not to do it."  The decision to remove Donut Drake came after a debate within the team. "We had a big debate about it and kind of approached it from all kinds of angles and decided we weren't comfortable having it in our game."

Removing Donut Drake doesn't make or break the game, but hopefully Donut will not make an appearance as paid DLC. Making a character skin that was previously included in every game available as paid DLC seems unfair.