Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series has now spanned five games across eight years and two console generations, with an emphasis on narrative storytelling, akin to blockbuster films. So, having now played through Nathan Drake’s story in Uncharted one through to four, what are my thoughts on the series, and how does each game measure up to each other?
The series follows Nathan Drake, an expert treasure thief, as he seeks fortune by searching for ancient cities and fabled bounties. Along the way, he is helped by fellow thieves, Victor Sullivan, Chloe Fraser and Charlie Cutter, along with journalist Elena Fisher, making up one of the most memorable set of characters ever put to gaming.
This premise, as you might have already guessed, takes plenty of inspiration from other popular franchises, such as Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider, following an elaborate historical trail across the globe while going up against a slew of villainous factions who will stop at nothing to stop you. However, it does manage to have a unique identity as get to follow these characters over many years of their lives, maturing and growing with them.
This isn’t something immediately apparent when playing the games, but once you reach four, and finally finish, you will realise just how great the story has become, and be able to look back at it with fond memories and a vast array of standout moments.
Nathan Drake is a perfect frontrunner for the series – he is skilled, competent and likeable, pushing the narrative forward quickly, and keeping a light-hearted tone with his quips and jokes. However, he is also fallible and imperfect, constantly brushing with death and barely getting by. He gets beat up, falls, and doesn’t know the answer to every puzzle. He often has to put aside his personal gain in favour of those around him, making him surprisingly empathetic.
The first game marked a new technical milestone in gaming – not only did it play as if it were a film, but the graphics and facial animations became relatable. They aren’t perfect by any means, and if you compare them to the latest entries, then there is a clear visual difference, but the motion capture, live performances and facial quality all make a consistent and tangible set of characters. The story is pretty good, although nothing exceptional, with primary villains we don’t see very much of, and a singular setting to the adventure that doesn’t allow for much variety, but it still plays very well.
The second game is my, and most players favourite. Everything is improved and expanded upon, from the graphics to the villain’s involvement and level variety. The story is more colourful, more action-packed and enjoyable. Now, a new cast of friends and enemies join in the adventure, putting Drake in over his head.
The third game once again raises a graphical and technical bar, but doesn’t quite measure up to the highs of two in terms of the story. It still has the jaw-dropping set-pieces, arguably more spectacular, and has a new, much needed melee system that varies the gameplay even further, but it became apparent to me that various aspects of the series had begun repeating themselves instead of treading new ground. It isn’t entirely the case, as I shall explain in the spoiler section, but it could have been a lot better in certain regards.
Four is the perfect swansong to Nathan Drake’s story. Between this game and three, he has been able to develop instead of falling back into the same routine. He is older, wiser and more cautious than before, with far much more at stake than his own life. Everything from the new additions to his team, to the final adventure all reflect on his life in a much deeper way than his previous outings, giving us not only the action and excitement, but also quiet moments to reflect on the series, and on Drake. There are various retcons to the past of the series, it has to be said, but none of them seem to detract from this game or the ones that came before it, instead adding a whole new side to Drake for us to explore. This, combined with the best this generation has to offer in terms of graphics, makes this one of the best games of the past few years.
With all that said, here’s how I rank them:
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: 7 out of 10
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 9.5 out of 10
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: 7.5 out of 10
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: 9 out of 10
The Uncharted Series: 8.5 out of 10
However, I do have a few gripes with the games that I didn’t mention there. For one, the collectibles are far too abundant in the games. I can let the first one off with only 60 treasures, along with a secret one, but each game since has had 100 and a secret one, and holding dozens of different skins behind milestones of them. If there were more frequent checkpoints that you could return to, particularly in some of the longer levels, or a treasure-hunting mode unlocked once you have finished the story, then I might tolerate them a bit more, but when you get to A Thief’s End, and there is a semi-open world level with 15 treasures that takes several hours to complete, that is where I start getting fearful Riddler Trophy flashbacks.
Another thing that bugs me is the repetition of particular types of environments – most prominently the jungle. At some point in every game (although it is more of a forest in three), this environment has been used, often accompanied by some heavy exposition from the companion. Drake’s Fortune set that precedent, and A Thief’s End feels like a call back to that, but in Among Thieves and Drake’s Deception it feels really dull.
Pacing is sometimes an issue as well, particularly in longer levels, when you know you have plenty of ground to cover, but have to solve a needlessly long and drawn out puzzle to allow your companion to proceed, or being forced into a slow walk so that characters can give off heaps of dialogue. This is to be expected from a game designed to feel like a movie, but goes on for at least ten times as long, possibly more depending on the difficulty you play on, which certainly increases the value for money, but often at the cost of pacing.
For these reasons, I would advise against simply playing them back-to-back, and instead play something between each one, making it all the more satisfying when you do return to the franchise.
SPOILER SECTION
Because this is review is covering four games instead of one, this will naturally be a little longer than usual, so I'll go over what I did and didn't like about each game individually, so if you've only completed a few, then you'll be able to read up to where you're at.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
The villains Roman and Nevarro are pretty weak in the game, mainly because they only interact with Drake on three particular occasions – after the Nazi U-boat, after kidnapping Elena to use as a hostage, and at the coffin of El Dorado. I had actually forgotten about them until I saw them in the ruins beneath the monastery, it had been that long since we had seen anything of them. They didn’t reflect any struggle Drake had to overcome, they only served as physical leaders to the hordes of enemies you shot down. Eddie Raja was arguably a far more compelling villain, considering he and Drake have a history, and it would match the light-hearted tone of the game.
However, what I will commend Drake’s Fortune on is the sudden yet seamless shift into horror, when the mutants attacked. They are quite clichéd, acting not too dissimilar to zombies, but their introduction taking out the pirates, Nathan and Eddie trapped fighting them while Elena lowered the rope, and their relentless attacks in the Nazi base all were executed perfectly, and added a new variety in combat – having to run-and-gun instead of just cover based shooting, providing a great new element to spice up the late game cycles through the monastery.
The final boss fight was not great, however, removing any involvement from the mutants, and instead performing as series of cover based segments, pushing Navarro back to the helicopter pad for a series of quick-time events.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
What I find interesting about Among Thieves is the complexity of the new characters brought in. Lazaravic is pretty clichéd, although his presence is certainly more imposing than Roman’s or Navarro’s, but the titular thieves seem to juxtapose Drake’s character in a way that wasn’t done in the first game; Harry Flynn is similar to Drake in many respects, cracking jokes and being more of an underdog, but acts without a moral compass, being perfectly happy with killing, and allying with Lazaravic, a known war criminal. While Lazaravic acts as a predominately physical threat to Drake, Flynn provides more of a personal stake in the story, creating the balance that the first game didn’t have.
Chloe is a more conflicted in her morality, torn between the two sides, but ultimately follows Drake’s example and puts her own life on the line in the final effort to stop Lazarvic. Her development in this game does make her the best candidate for continuing the series once Drake leaves, and I am excited to eventually get round to playing the Lost Legacy.
A few of my problems in the story come in how Naughty Dog decided to repeat twists and plot points from the first game, such as the yeti-guardians actually being people under the influence of the Cintimani Stone, the inclusion of a group of Nazis having some involvement prior to the events of the story, and ‘Sully’ being out of action between the first and final segments.
Additionally, the breakup between Drake and Elena didn’t feel hugely earned, serving only as an excuse for Drake to have a romantic conflict, and for it to be resolved as if nothing had happened by the time the credits rolled.
However, this game does have various standout moments for me, including the war-torn city and the collapsing buildings, the fight with the yetis in the ice caverns, and the brutal attack on the Tibetan village. These moments not only provide spectacle and interesting gameplay, but present a new conflicts, like the consequences of Drake’s adventures, and the power of an unrelenting military force. These make the story so much richer than fighting pirates on an island with little to no immediate consequences, and perfectly ground the new globe-trotting story with a compelling pace.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
Drake’s Deception tries to improve on many aspects of the last two games, but unfortunately doesn’t manage to pull it off. For one, it has a lot more filler material than Among Thieves, juggling various different items that they have to collect, and throwing characters in and out of the story without much time to properly do them justice.
Chloe and Charlie, for example, appear early on, then split off from Drake and Sully, before they regrouping at the place they should have already either taken the item from, or lost it to the bad guys, and finally, Charlie breaks his leg in the escape, and Chloe goes to the hospital with him. Both of these characters are likeable, and I wouldn’t mind them having their own games, but it felt like Naughty Dog tried to have both an ensemble of characters and a tightly-wound story about Drake and Sully at the same time.
Another example is the cruise boat segment, when we get three to four chapters of Drake looking for a supposedly captured Sully while fighting a whole new set of villains in the form of pirates, only to discover that the pirate captain had made it up, and the main bad guys had Sully, and now the boat is capsizing, and…
Again, a fun segment from a gameplay perspective, and running through a tilted over cruise ship is incredibly fun, but because of the disjointed nature of it when lined up with the main narrative, it feels like you are playing another entry in the series. Where is the secret British society that wants to govern the world through the shadows? Where are the rest of the characters? If this were a film, I could guarantee that most of this wouldn’t happen. Drake would be drugged, wake up with the pirates, have a fist-fight, and then return to Elena, instead of going on a thirty minute side quest to recue Sully, when he wasn’t even there in the first place.
For a game series that prides itself on being the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster, it really dropped the ball on this one.
Along with this, another breakup with Elena has happened, which provides essentially the same romantic situation as before, aside from the jealousy over a possible new romance option with the absence of Chloe, but they get back together and presumably remarry, putting them at a very similar situation to the end of two. The villains, like the first game, are pretty one dimensional, although they do interact with Drake a lot more, and Sir Francis Drake’s ring for some reason has become linked to another lost city, now in the Rubi-Kali Desert. I imagine this was done to re-establish links to Francis Drake, especially considering the revelation that Nathan Drake isn’t actually the descendent of him, and he only chose to adopt that name, but to me, it was yet another old plot thread rehashed into this narrative, creating a sort of Uncharted: best of compilation without much of an original story to speak of.
What is new, the secret order, feels like a step down from Lazaravic and his armies. Whereas before, the toughest enemy you would face would be a heavily armoured, minigun-wielding juggernaut, you now have a muscle bound bald British bloke, who takes slightly longer to kill than other enemies, and instead of any supernatural elements or imposing standoffs in the finale, you instead have a fist-fight with the same guy that you were able to beat up earlier, only this time he has a knife.
I wouldn’t have minded if we’d have gotten another hallucination section like when Drake drank from the water earlier, as we would at least have had some spectacle during the fight, as we could have been battling a D'Jinn version of one of the main villains, but after the final levels of the previous two games, I felt this was a little underwhelming, not to mention a nightmare to play on crushing difficulty.
However, one redeeming aspect to the story is the exploration of the relationship between Sully and Drake, seen first in the flashbacks to Drake’s teenage years and their first encounter, to the present day, where Sully ultimately admits that he sees Drake as a son. This is the core of the game, and once you wade through all the filler to get to it, it is quite heartwarming. Combine this with the improved combat system and the stunning set-pieces like the burning chateau or the desert, and you have a full and satisfying experience, even if the story is far less compelling than its predecessor.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
This game does something that was long overdue in the franchise – it develops Nathan and Elena’s relationship. Not only are they happily married, but Drake has retired from thieving, and has vowed to make his way in the world legitimately. As seen from the past games, Drake has a conscience, and now as the logical development from that, he has renounced his criminal ways, and settled down.
That is, until his long lost, thought to be dead brother shows up, with his life supposedly at risk, and reopening a job that was left abandoned decades ago.
I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this, as it is clearly a retcon considering his brother was never mentioned in any of the previous games, and the flashbacks in Drake’s Deception implied that he was working alone when he met Sully, but on the other hand it creates a brilliant conflict – Sam Drake, the older brother, was stuck in prison, and as such hasn’t grown and developed like Nathan, still reveling in thieving and adventuring. Nathan, while still being captivated by the thoughts of going on another adventure, has commitments to Elena, and a life free of crime, something that he has to lose from returning to his old ways.
As such, the story is less about any large scale conflicts, or villains who plan to rule the world, but rather about letting go of the past, finding more important things in life than blind obsession, with Sam and Rafe both consumed by the thought of finding Henry Avery’s treasure, and Nathan, wiser than both of them, simply trying to keep his brother safe.
Rafe is perhaps the most developed villain in the series, having past ties with the Drakes like Eddie Raja or Harry Flynn, but is ruthless in the pursuit of his goals, like Lazaravic. He was born wealthy, but resents it, wanting to prove his merit to the world by finding Avery’s treasure and earning his wealth for himself, an otherwise admirable goal if he wasn’t driven to obsession and willing to kill for it. It is also somewhat ironic that he uses the wealth he was born with to carry out his mission, such as hiring Shoreline, creating a hypocrisy and entitlement in his character that, although may not have been intentional by Naughty Dog, certainly adds another layer to him.
The final sword-fight with him is pretty sweet as well. Due to the more grounded and realistic nature of the game compared to original trilogy, there didn’t need to be any supernatural forces in the game. It was just two men duelling with Rafe making Nathan out to be a legend that he could best just to satisfy his ego, not realising or caring that Avery and Tew died before in a similar way before them.
However, the biggest problem in the game for me is Nadine Ross. While every other main character in the game has a depth, personality and history, Nadine Ross seems to have none. She commands the Shoreline mercenary group, and she is a badass with an bad attitude. That is all that there is to her. She is there because she is paid to be, not because she has any personal stake or vendetta against the Drake’s or some need for the money gained by the treasure, but because her army or mercenaries were hired out to serve as the bullet fodder for this game. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Shoreline is the best group of enemies this game could hope for, not overshadowing Lazaravic’s army, but providing enough of a physical threat to have compelling gameplay and narrative. It’s just Nadine who rubs me the wrong way.
There are two scripted gameplay sections in which Nathan get beaten up by her, on both occasions getting knocked out of a window. The first is with Nathan alone, in a one-sided fight where none of your punches land, and she wipes the floor with you. I can give this one to Nadine, however, because despite Nathan being twice her size, he hadn't had much practice fighting eight-feet British thugs or near invincible warlords for several years, and she was clearly the better martial artist, so I can give Naughty Dog that one.
The second, however, is particularly annoying. This is when both Nathan and Sam fight her, both them twice her size, and had already killed half of her men by the time they got there. Instead of making short work of her, they both get beaten up pretty badly, despite starting the fight by body slamming her into the floor. Nathan is knocked out of a window, jumps down from the roof, and punches her through the floorboards. He crawls over to the gun, but she is already up and unfazed, and stands on his hand, leaving Sam to sneak up and grab the gun. They technically win, but only by pointing a gun at her after both of them are physically beaten.
This doesn't line up with what we have seen prior in the franchise, that is what bugs me. If Drake consistently lost fights, then I would understand, but he doesn't. He takes a few hits, but always scrapes by by the skin of his teeth. Had this been any other villain in the franchise, I would be making the exact same argument. Lazaravic’s fight was winnable. Talbot’s fight was winnable. Rafe’s fight was winnable. Talbot’s first fight with you resulted in him running off and leaving you with a dozen of his lackeys, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to win one-on-one.
Now, if Nadine actually have to try in the fight, receiving a few punches and making her stumble back in recoil, then I wouldn't have a problem. Say, for instance, that she was the one scraping by, taking the punches and actually hurting. It could demonstrate that Nathan, and Sam in particular, were going too far in their pursuit of the treasure, and pull a truly thought-provoking moment that would foreshadow the reveal that Sam had lied about the threat to his life just to get Nathan to come along. Give her a black eye, or have her limping for the rest of the game, as she isn't physically active in the story after that point. This could make her more sympathetic, especially when Rafe hits her and reveals he bought out the last of her men, as he hurts her when she is clearly in no condition to fight back, and her leaving him in Avery’s ship with the Drake brothers would feel a whole lot more satisfying as a progression of her character, as she shifts from a one dimensional villain into a sympathetic character prior to her adventure with Chloe in The Lost Legacy.
I know that I’ve been quite harsh on Nadine here, but that’s because she is essentially the only narrative problem in the whole game, and I really wouldn’t have much to critique if I didn’t bring her up. I guess other problems would be the relic collectibles again, as well as the drawn-out nature of levels like The Twelve Towers, but I consider them more on the gameplay end, and besides, with a game as good-looking as this, I can’t really blame them for showing off as much as they can.
The ending epilogue is perhaps the most satisfying moment of the game, giving Nathan and Elena the happy ending they deserved, with a family and a dog on some tropical beach, and their daughter hearing about the adventure that started it all in a wave of teary-eyed nostalgia.
I find that all to often these days, frontrunners of popular franchises are forcefully replaced to make way for the new and (often less compelling) instead allowing them to reach a natural end, so when his game ended in a way that can only be described as perfect, I was quite relieved.
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