It took the team 22 months to develop the game, with 6 months of that time spent just in pre-production.

According to game's designer Richard Lemarchand, the Tibetan village in the game was inspired by the 2008 video game The Graveyard developed by Tale of Tales. The game's title affected him a lot more than he expected, with its simple experience of leading a slowly-moving elderly lady through a graveyard.

"I thought that in the same way that The Graveyard had created a space for me where I could reflect, so could our village."

In Chapter 2 - Breaking and Entering, Harry Flynn tries to save Nathan Drake from a failed jump attempt. He'll say to Nathan, "You put on weight, mate" and "Whew, alright, no more doughnuts for you". This is a reference to Nathan Drake's "Doughnut Drake" skin.

In "Chapter 24 - The Road to Shambhala", if you attempt to punch "Harry Flynn", he will counterattack. If you keep trying, he will eventually shoot you.

In the German language version of the game, all references to Nazis remain uncensored except for one. In "Chapter 24 - The Road to Shambhala", primary antagonist Zoran Lazarević states that the people he idolizes are "Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot". In the German version, Hitler is replaced with "Saddam" (Hussein), instead.