A journey of a thousand miles begins with… Nathan Drake.
The executives at Sony’s gaming division must be immensely proud of their cherished development powerhouse Naughty Dog. Having thoroughly extracted universal praise (and dollars) from gamers and gaming journalists alike for their previous masterpiece, The Last of Us, the bar would be raised for subsequent projects on the newer PlayStation 4 hardware. It is no surprise then that Naughty Dog has flexed their muscles and cranked out another extremely competent product. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End fulfills the promises made for what this current generation of consoles can offer in terms of graphical prowess, engaging stories, and atmospheric immersion. But is Uncharted 4 just a pretty face, or is there more to love? Read on to find out.
I confess that Uncharted 4 is my first adventure with Nathan Drake, the main character of the series. Having recently completed a second play through The Last of Us, I had a good idea of what to expect from the developer. Initially I was concerned that being a newcomer to the series that I would struggle to understand the backstory and gameplay style. Luckily the developer seems to understand that not everyone has made it through the series from the beginning, and I found that Uncharted 4 is very accessible to the novice gamer. I never felt lost or confused as to the story and characters, since the game helpfully provides all the flashbacks you’ll ever need to understand the motivation and origin of the characters and their relationships to one another. As for the gameplay, I’m sure it is not a spoiler to reveal that you’ll be doing a lot of rock climbing, rope swinging, and slope sliding during the course of Nathan Drake’s adventure. I was rarely unsure of where to go next or how to scale the next obstacle because the game provides enough visual cues and hints in the environment to nudge you in the right direction without frustration. I fell to my death countless times, but the game always puts you right back to where you last enjoyed solid ground to let you try again without limits. The game also encourages you to go off the beaten path where possible by hiding little collectible goodies in the environments that you should try to find. Overall it is a very accessible game even when played through on medium difficulty.
The campaign story of Uncharted 4 begins very promisingly after the obligatory tutorial/exposition period. Throughout the first several chapters, you’ll climb tons of rocks and steep cliffs, explore old dusty structures, engage in tense gunplay, beat up some thugs, and even relish in some good duplicitous espionage. I’m not familiar with previous Uncharted games in the series, but I’ll assume that this is par for the course for the ever-affable Nathan Drake and company. Most of the time you’ll be slowly and meticulously crawling your way through the environments, but at times the action gets kicked up to heart-racing levels. Most of the first half of the campaign plays like an exciting action movie, not unlike an Indiana Jones or James Bond flick. Some seriously impressive set pieces and fast-paced action sequences really keep the pace moving and provide a refreshing variety to the long periods of quiet exploration.
In an unfortunate contrast however, the latter half of the campaign feels long and drawn-out. Several long chapters feel padded and largely unnecessary, devolving into a seemingly never-ending plod of “go here, find clue, go there, find clue, repeat, repeat, etc.” I can understand that the developers really wanted to show off the detailed environments that they lovingly created, but the mostly linear 1000-mile trek through rocky and forested terrain seems to go on a lot longer than it should have. The story progression stalls as well when the only remaining focus is finding a possible treasure at the end of the long road; seriously outgunned and outmanned by your nefarious treasure-hunting rivals. When you finally get to the end however, the conclusion is satisfying and well worth the effort.
There are times in Uncharted 4 when you will be sneaking around and attempting to eliminate armed enemies by stealth. In these situations the game also allows you the option of simply going in guns a-blazing. Both methods usually work just fine, depending on your level of patience, but I found that enemies were particularly fond of coming up behind you and filling your backside full of lead. They’re often pretty smart and make good use of obstacles to take cover behind, but I still can’t believe how many enemies in games just stand out in the open and shoot. Perhaps choosing a higher difficulty level would encourage more enemies to take cover, so I’ll reserve judgment until I can try that. The controls at least are smooth and fluid and Nathan swings from ledge to ledge with more grace than seems possible given the circumstances. After a while I noticed myself constantly mashing the “jump” button repeatedly just to hurry things along and making sure that I didn’t miss a critical launch from a ledge. To the games detriment however, tense situations are often resolved through rapid-fire quicktime events, the overuse of which I feel distracts from the experience.
It is hard not to be amazed by the visuals in Uncharted 4. The developer pushed the PS4 to output some truly marvelous graphics and effects while maintaining a steady and fluid frame rate. The attention to detail is equally as impressive with everything from footprints in the snow to diverse lighting effects. Frequently throughout the game I couldn’t help but stop to admire the surrounding landscapes, often accentuated by a beautiful setting sun or stormy weather. Environments are fully rendered and detailed for miles in every direction, and gameplay provides more than enough high unobstructed vantage points to really appreciate it all. Naughty Dog is not above naked self-promotion and showing off, but Uncharted 4 is hands-down the most vast and beautiful world I have ever seen in a game, and the photorealism is striking. On a smaller scale, the foliage, rock faces, and crumbling structures are extremely detailed and rendered in impressively high definition. Overall, Uncharted 4 is as much a video game as it is a piece of art.
Once you have completed Uncharted 4, new features are unlocked that change the look and feel of the game. Some features affect gameplay and give you an advantage, while others only affect the graphics or sound. Playing around with these is pretty fun and can give you a reason to replay parts of the campaign. Character skins and concept art can also be unlocked. By finding the hidden collectibles scattered throughout the world during gameplay you can use them as the currency to unlock these extra features, so you definitely have an incentive to look for them.
A few words on the suicidal thrill-seeker known as Nathan Drake are in order here. Even when you don’t count the many times that I accidentally fell to my death, Nathan Drake endures at least a hundred near-death experiences during the course of his adventure. He doesn’t think twice about swinging from ropes and flying through the air without the care in the world, and his incessantly cheerful disposition in the face of danger is sometimes annoying. Several times after jumping and soaring hundreds of feet over the abyss to grab onto a ledge, it crumbles away and he almost falls to his death. Many other times Nathan will barely escape a collapsing building. This happens a lot, but Nathan Drake shakes it off every time with a clever quip or a jovial sigh of relief. When he isn’t one slip away from certain death he’s dodging bullets, escaping crumbling structures, and breaking the necks of well-armed mercenaries. I won’t judge his life choices (that’s a lie), but it must be by pure divine intervention that Nathan has somehow survived through four such adventures. It is humorous sometimes how the game calculates whether you were successful in reaching a certain ledge, because even if you were not quite close enough, Nathan appears to miraculously hover somewhat towards the ledge. Divine intervention indeed!
In conclusion, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a fabulous addition to any PlayStation 4 library that lives up to developer Naughty Dog’s demonstrated capabilities. It is easily accessible to series newcomers and will provide countless hours of entertainment through its initial play-through, along with post-game extras to keep you going a little longer. Online multiplayer is included in the package for those who like to play with others. The achingly beautiful environments will steal your breath, and the gameplay provides enough variety to keep you mostly interested. The story starts out strong but stagnates towards the latter half of the game, which is perhaps the only mild disappointment in an otherwise exceptional experience.
[taq_review]
A review code for the game was provided to us by its publisher.