A senior animator and coder for Naughty Dog has confirmed via Twitter that the trailer shown on Monday for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End was in-engine rather than pre-rendered.

Corinne Yu is currently animating and coding graphics for Uncharted 4 and has also worked on The Last of Us under Naughty Dog. Through a Twitter reply, she confirmed that what we saw in the Uncharted 4 trailer was in gameplay rather than a CGI cutscene.

The trailer was certainly gorgeous and featured a very detailed character model of Nathan Drake. The environments were also heavy in detail which led most to believe that what was shown was pre-rendered, not actual gameplay. This isn't the most difficult thing to believe, however, as Naughty Dog has been known for pushing the boundaries of visuals in video games with the Uncharted series and most recently with The Last of Us. 

We have reached out to Yu for more information but haven't heard anything yet at this time. Be sure to watch the trailer for the game to see the impressive visuals for yourself. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is scheduled to release sometime in 2015.

Our Take
As a huge fan of the Uncharted series, this is definitely not bad news. I was absolutely blown away by how great Uncharted 2 looked back in 2009 and it looks like Naughty Dog hasn't lost its touch in the visual field. I can only hope that the game and story manage to impress just as well.