Yesterday a clever prankster posted two videos on Vimeo passing them as engine tests of the upcoming Uncharted game for PS4. The internet just exploded and for a little while almost everyone believed them real (I seriously never saw so many people trusting a leak on NeoGAF, and this probably goes to show just how much hype there is for the game), unfortunately me included.

One of the sneaky elements that pushed many to believe in the authenticity of the videos is that the author of the prank used the nickname of Naughty Dog's ICE Team Programmer Cort "Postgoodism" Stratton.

Stratton took the problem in stride, and commented on Twitter with commendable calm (after all it's never fun to be falsely impersonated):

As much as I appreciate the surge of new followers, I assure you that I am not in the business of leaking Uncharted 4 videos.

To further clarify: I work on PS4 platform tech, not NDI's games. I probably couldn't tell a real Uncharted video from a fake one.

But I am assured by Top Men that these were fakes.

This is actually a pretty nice water effect! I should forward it over to @cgonzoo [Graphics Programmer at Naughty Dog] as possible reference material...

Graphics programmers and game designers are always on the lookout for reference material, and the original video by Important Looking Pirates has indeed one of the best water effects I've seen in a long while.

If the video will be included between the reference material used to create the next Uncharted game's water effects, it might still end up influencing the real game, and this prank that got our hearts racing for a few minutes might still prove useful.

In the meanwhile, you can see the video that started it all below.

//player.vimeo.com/video/50674617?portrait=0&color=85c8ce