With the release of the new and impressive gameplay footage of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Naughty Dog developers are explaining what we saw during the presentation and the technology involved. Lead Animator Jeremy Yates provided more color on on the game's animations.First of all, a detail that many might have not noticed is that the gun straps are actually working and fully animated:

Secondly, Yates confirmed that Drake uses inverse kinematics animation for his fingers, and that new tools were developed for them to interact with the new climbing system.

“IK” animation, which stands for “Inverse Kinematics.” It’s an animation technique that instead of having characters move according to direct input given to the joints, makes them interact with the environment dynamically and naturally, causing body parts to effectively land on certain objects.

Yates also praised the work of the animation and programming team, mentioning that the details, fluidity and responsiveness we saw in the demo require a lot of commitment to the job.

The demo definitely looked impressive, and the game is still quite far away from release. It'll be interesting to see just how far Naughty Dog will be able to push the tech envelope with it.