QuickCheck: Was a Malaysian phone number used in an award-winning AAA video game?

OVER the last few years, a claim has been floated online that a Malaysian phone number was used in a triple-A video game.

Is this true?

VERDICT:

TRUE

A Malaysian phone number was in fact included in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, a 2016 action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.

The role-playing game revolves around hunting for long-lost treasure, where the player steps into the shoes of Nathan Drake, a former treasure hunter coaxed out of retirement by his presumed-dead brother Samuel.

Malaysia is mentioned in one of the earliest quests in the game.

Dubbed as "The Malaysia Job", the mission references several Malaysian "traits", with one "Easter egg" stealing the limelight in the entire chapter.

During one of the cutscenes in the mission, players see a map with the name "Hasnul Hadi" and a Malaysian phone number beside it.

The phone number, consisting of the usual 10-number format beginning with 019, is a working phone number that leads to an answering machine.

According to reports, "Hasnul Hadi" refers to Hasnul Hadi Samsudin, who was formerly the vice-president of the Digital Creative Content Division of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), and is currently the Head of Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStations Studios Malaysia at PlayStation.

He had spent a solid 14 years in MDEC, and had contributed to many initiatives in the areas of e-commerce and policy development, and project implementation of the creative digital content industry.

Apart from the references to Malaysia, it was revealed that Malaysian digital art studio Passion Republic played an integral role in developing Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

It was reported that more than 100 in-game items were developed by the Malaysian studio.