10 Video Games That Blew Your Mind (Without You Realising)

Naughty Dog had to employ quite a few development tricks in order to achieve their desired blockbuster movie-style pacing without that pesky player mucking it up because they saw a crate and decided that OBVIOUSLY jumping on the crate would lead to some grand secret or something.

The most incredible of these tricks, bar none, is found in Uncharted 2's Locomotion chapter. It's most impressive in how it utilizes techniques that games have been using for years to cover or hide loading screens all in one level to make it feel so much more massive and immersive than it otherwise would have been.

The train in the level is absurdly long, and is running constantly on a series of loops, to give the illusion of forward progress. The train cars that have the invisible flag to make the level progress all have very tall walls or trigger cutscenes to mask the transition between environments. Just one of the many ways that Naughty Dog kept the Uncharted games feeling fresh and exciting despite the player's best efforts.