Fans of final 12 months’s gloriously painful literal strolling sim sport Baby Steps have a wild idea about its onesie-clad screw-up of a foremost character, Nate: they assume he is the son of Uncharted’s Nathan Drake, and so they have a stunning quantity of proof to show it.
Baby Steps follows the story of Nate, a grown man who wakes up barefoot in a onesie in a unusual world occupied by donkey individuals. Uncertain how he bought there or the place he is even going, you must make Nate press onward anyway by utilizing the management sticks and shoulder buttons in your controller to painstakingly elevate one leg at a time, place it, and set it again down. The very act of strolling ahead is agony, and you will be horrible at it for a good chunk of the sport. Then, simply if you begin to get used to strolling, Baby Steps throws mudslides and sand dunes and mountains and ice at you to make issues much more troublesome.
Baby Steps is incredible – it is a meditation on masculinity and the expectations that come packaged with that, in addition to an interrogation of what the participant considers “character progress”. Nate, to be frank, sucks. He is a middle-aged coward who principally sits in his dad and mom’ basement and performs video video games, has no redeeming qualities and contributes little to nothing to society. He spends most of Baby Steps stubbornly refusing to just accept assist from anybody, even favors that might make his journey exponentially simpler, comparable to a map or a pair of footwear or, relying on the way you play, a huge staircase up a treacherous mountain. He moans and groans, falls down and always soils himself, and is mostly simply the most irritating particular person doable to embody for 20ish hours of sluggish, agonizing strolling.
Given all that, it is fairly far-fetched to assume he’d be the son of famend adventurer Nathan Drake, a good-looking, clever and match protagonist identified for occurring a collection of worldwide adventures and efficiently escaping numerous harmful conditions. He and his spouse, Elena, canonically have a daughter named Cassie – developer Naughty Canine by no means gave him a son. What’s extra, there’s nothing to counsel that the devs and writer Sony ever would give their blessings to the Baby Steps group to make any youngster of theirs a whole catastrophe of a human. It is asinine.
And but. Blessing or no, a variety of followers assume that the Baby Steps devs created Nate with the quiet however express intention of being a Drake. A lot of those theories have been posited approach again in October 2025, shortly after the sport’s launch, however I’ve solely lately been made conscious of them. In the “lore” channel of the official Baby Steps Discord, a number of gamers have discovered connections between the two characters that appear far too pointed to be nothing.
Nate does not communicate a lot about his private life all through his journey, however all through Baby Steps, Nate can purchase varied foolish hats to put on, a few of which offer him with desires reflecting on his actual life if he makes it to camp with them at the finish of a day. In one in all these desires, Nate is known as “Nate D” and Nate “Dumbass” – he additionally goes by “Nathan Bake” at one level when he flirts with being a DJ. By different scenes, (*5*), we study that he has a sister named Cassie, and that he is a “junior” – his dad can also be named Nathan. And per the credit, his mother is called Elena. If that is not sufficient out the gate as proof, dataminers have discovered that Nate’s mannequin is simply known as “Nathan Drake” in the sport’s recordsdata (as shared by Caleb (monkeylicker) in the official Discord.)
There are extra delicate hints too, although as soon as you realize about them they really feel about as delicate as a humanoid speaking donkey with no pants. Examine this piece of official Baby Steps artwork with the cowl artwork for Uncharted 4 (have a look at Baby Steps Nate’s hand!), as noticed by Drencrom in the Discord:
Noticed by Kuromi_#1Fan in the Discord, there’s a image hanging on the wall in the New Game menu of Sir Francis Drake – the alleged ancestor of Nathan Drake. Additionally noticed by Drencrom, the “World’s Best Dad” achievement picture appears an terrible lot like an older Nathan Drake. There’s also a scene the place Nathan wakes up on the seashore that pretty closely mirrors a scene from Uncharted 4.
And there is this entire optional phone scene when you select to climb an deserted practice, identical to Nathan Drake Sr., the place his dad on the cellphone considerably perks up when Nate mentions the deserted practice.
And at last, much less proof and extra simply a enjoyable little bonus, throughout the practically half-hour-long cutscene that performs at the finish of Baby Steps when you skip each different cutscene in the sport, Gabe Cuzzillo and Bennett Foddy drop their characters and speak about, among other things, Uncharted, making it clear they’re followers.
The preponderance of proof that the Baby Steps devs made this with the artistic intent of this protagonist being Nathan Uncharted Drake’s failson was so overwhelming and so humorous that I reached out to devs Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy to see if they’d any remark or affirmation, however they declined.
In fact, it is fairly apparent that neither Sony nor Naughty Canine goes to canonize this – for one, it looks like Nate Jr. is useless or a minimum of isekaied, making his introduction into the Uncharted universe a little bit of a moot level. For 2, that is all very foolish. Maybe a contact too foolish for Uncharted.
However whether or not you resolve to learn Baby Steps as a secret fan-made Uncharted 5 or not, it is very value taking part in. We gave it a 9/10 in our evaluation, calling it “an infuriating ordeal of deliberately awkward physics that’s brutal, unbelievably silly, and downright superior.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Acquired a story tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.