Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves – Review

Naughty Dog’s games hadn’t really clicked with me until The Last of Us Part 2. I’d never been a big fan of their work, including Uncharted. So I decided to give it another go with the PS5 remastered Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Would a re-play of Uncharted 4 and my first foray into the Lost Legacy be improved by my newfound admiration for Naughty Dog’s mega-budget cinematic shine? There’s no doubt about it. Just a little bit.

Pros:
Stellar visuals
Strong characters and story
Top tier production values
Great audio design
Great value for the collection

Cons:
Some scripted design issues

Score – 9/10

The problem is that I’ve always found Uncharted to be impressive, but only occasionally enjoyable. To be sure, they resemble an interactive Hollywood action film, but they do so in two different ways. It’s like being Indiana Jones a lot of the time when you play an Uncharted game: you get into all kinds of crazy situations and then somehow manage to pull yourself out of them somehow. That’s much less exciting than being Harrison Ford’s muddled stunt double and trying to remember your cues. I can almost hear the director yelling “Cut!” as the last checkpoint reloads every time I jump off a cliff or get stuck to a wall or ledge while an enemy soldier guns me down. “I’ll have a second one. And get it right this time.”

As impressive as these games are aesthetically and technically, there is a downside to all of their accomplishments in terms of writing, directing, and animating them. There is a heightened sense of immersion in the action, but it also comes with a high degree of suspense and danger. Then, as with a ledge crumbling under Nathan Drake’s weight, it will break.

But in other ways, these games fail to immerse me in their world as effectively as they could. There are times when I feel like I’m not needed at all, because the game is content to play itself. My analogue stick is merely moved towards the next bolded and underlined grab point while I wait for Nate or Chloe (the protagonist of Lost Legacy) to signal that it’s safe to jump, or for the grappling hook icon to appear so that I can obediently latch on. No matter how complex the environment becomes, geography ceases to matter as I follow a breadcrumb trail and rush blindly towards anything I can interact with. Is this some sort of investigation?

In climbing sections, Naughty Dog frequently uses the old breaking ledge routine, in which your character loses their footing and falls, only to grab a lower ledge and pull themselves back up. This is telling. This has nothing to do with your performance; it’s just padding. It’s easy to overuse autopilot when you have so many opportunities to do so. When it happens a third time, you’re likely to start rolling your eyes. By the tenth or twentieth level, it’s as if the game’s imagination has gone out of sync.

As with other tired navigational clichés, such as boosting your partner and pushing crates to higher ground, the same rules apply here. However, it’s a rare moment of self-parody that highlights how tedious these things get in Uncharted 4 when served up with a straight face when they’re dropped early on in Lost Legacy with a knowing quip.

The mechanical puzzles, the behind-the-cover shootouts, the climbing, and the plots are all now dryly formulaic, revealing an ironic absence of new ground. You don’t get the chance to see a completely hidden city that has been hidden for centuries, as Chloe points out. The only exception is Uncharted, where every historical figure has built a hidden city to protect their valuables.

In addition, the forced combat sequences tend to be messy and unpleasant. ‘ Fights are more fun when done covertly (although some distractions wouldn’t go amiss), but when I’m thrown into a big brawl, I lose interest quickly. That I get stuck on ledges and other bits of cover isn’t helping matters either, but I attribute a lot of that to overly helpful control systems guessing my intentions incorrectly.

Even though I’ve grown accustomed to these quirks, I’m never confident enough to take risks in these shootouts because of my lack of agility and precision. Trying to be clever will almost certainly result in disaster. That is not the outlook of an action hero. When I’m out of sight, I’ll note that my AI partner is doing fine on his or her own, and the game resumes as if nothing happened.

This is the bad stuff, and I doubt that no matter how many times I play these games, I’ll ever get over these issues. Despite this, I’m still a fan of them. Uncharted 4 had sections that I thoroughly enjoyed this time around, whereas Lost Legacy does a better job of taming the game’s more frustrating elements, making it a more enjoyable experience.

It’s hard to find anything that compares to the pacing, spectacle, and even variety provided by Uncharted 4’s Madagascar segment midway through the game. A jeep tour of the mud-soaked hills surrounding the volcano, before returning to town to ascend the clocktower mechanism, which requires some observation and planning—and then running straight into the extended car chase—is the part of the game where you’re solving a half-decent puzzle, then running straight into an extended car chase. Shows off everything the series does brilliantly for just two hours.

The final set piece, in particular, is still jaw-dropping six years later. A long cinematic vehicle-based action scene like this one wouldn’t be attempted by many studios, even large ones, let alone executed so well (at least until you make a wrong turn and get stuck on a tree). Lost Legacy’s train ride finale, choreographed and executed with equal gusto, is its only real rival.

Lost Legacy’s Western Ghats section, which builds on Uncharted 4’s jeep exploration with a fully open-world map to explore at your leisure, is my personal favourite part of the game. This is where the game most closely resembles an Indiana Jones adventure, as the game’s naturally occurring sequences of gunfights, puzzles, banter, and ruin raids take on an Indiana Jones feel. This is the meat and potatoes if the big action set pieces are the icing on the cake. It’s time to chomp down.

As a result, Lost Legacy became my favourite side quest over the main event. By cutting out Uncharted 4’s slow start and plodding conclusion, it exposes the game’s succulent middle section with greater speed. It also leaves less room for the same old routines to wear themselves out through repetition. While Nadine’s family drama has made Chloe and Nadine less laddish, they are also less giddy at the destruction of far-off countries. However, the show’s imperialist mindset of trampling over ‘exotic’ foreign countries to grab their treasures is still very much present in the series.

Although the PS5’s smoother performance, the haptic feedback on the triggers, and the funky rumble all add subtle notes of immersion to both games, The Last of Us 2 has since one-upped those obscene production values (you can also import PS4 saves if you have them). The PS4’s fans didn’t sound like jet engines when I first played Uncharted 4, so it was nice not to have to deal with that.

To wit, Naughty Dog knows how important great views are in games like these, which are all about exploring breathtaking locales and discovering even more breathtaking locales within them. This is evident from the characters’ constant references to how great the views are. Everything about this Madagascan town is stunning, whether you’re perched atop its clocktower or staring spellbound at the massive relief of elephant-headed god Ganesh carved into a rock face. As for the minor details, like how many antique mechanisms have been eroded or reclaimed by nature over the centuries, there’s a wealth of information out there. Special in every way.

When it comes to the script and voice acting in these games, it’s impossible to ignore that they are still above and beyond what most studios are doing. Surely nobody does situational dialogue or the accidental chats that occur while you and your partner are between death-defying stunts better. The fact that nearly every major character has the personality trait of “cocky” is grating, but the show’s quality is on par with comparable film and television and frequently finds room to be warm and witty.

There you have it. When they’re at their most stunning, games like Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy are also their most fragile. Overall, they’re quite impressive. As long as there is a true current-generation sequel, I hope that the little advances made by Lost Legacy are taken much further, because the series could use a few new tricks.