The hole in question is 1292, when Polo left the court of Kublai Khan to return home to Venice, taking a fleet of 14 treasure ships and more than 600 men with him. By the time he finally reached Europe, he was down to one ship, and roughly a dozen survivors. “He never once said anything about what happened to him,” says Hennig. “And on his death bed, after people had called him a liar for what he had spoken about in his book, he said: ‘I didn’t say even half of what I saw’.”

But the search for Polo’s lost fleet is the starting point, rather than the climax, of Among Thieves, and events swiftly grow reassuringly complex. Polo’s real secret – and Drake’s eventual target – turns out to be Shambhala, the legendary Tibetan city also known as Shangri-La, and fabled home of the Cintamani Stone, a ruby which was reputed to have the power to grant wishes. It’s a story that allows for a much wider range of settings on this outing, far beyond the jungles of the first game.

The teaser trailer for Among Thieves shows a wounded, bedraggled Drake fighting his way through a snowstorm to uncover a mysterious object. Treasure hunting may still be at the fore of the action, but the shift in locations – the lush jungles of the original replaced with the bleak icefields of South-East Asia and the urban reality of a war-torn Nepal – suggests the holiday brochure appeal of the first game may be in danger of disappearing.

Add to that the promise – or threat – of a new stealth mechanic, and you could be forgiven for wondering if, in an effort to distance itself from the house of Croft, Uncharted has somewhat lost its sense of direction.

But the developers seem quietly confident of the choices they’ve made. “We wanted a wide range of environments this time,” explains Balestra after rolling the trailer. “We wanted to show this wasn’t just a jungle game.” And, from what we’ve seen, the team has succeeded in this aim: alongside ice caverns and frozen mountainsides, we’re shown a real variety of environments, from lush indoor spaces filled with gold leaf and bright colours, to an opulent train with blood red curtains and swinging brass lights, and a desolate Nepalese monastery clinging to the side of a cliff.

A passing glimpse at somebody’s workstation suggests the team may even have found room to include another jungle or two along the way.“I’ve never done so much research for any project as I have for this,” says Rhob Ruppel, Among Thieves’ art director. “We didn’t want any sense of a retread with this game, and we really wanted every bit of detail to make the world believable. Anyone can pile on details, but we also want to use them to create a mood. What would Ridley Scott do to a location like a temple? He’d layer on the right elements: tattered cloths and ropes and things that move in the wind. Our locations come alive. They breathe and have a backstory.”