Review: Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves Collection is a strong PS5 debut for Naughty Dog

The Uncharted franchise has always excelled in spectacle. From Uncharted 2’s iconic collapsing hotel to protagonist Nathan Drake hanging out of the back of a plane hundreds of feet above the desert, Uncharted is a series that has pushed limits technically, and cinematically, for over a decade.

It’s no surprise that later this year we’ll be treated to a big-screen adaptation of some of Nathan Drake’s adventures starring Spider-Man star Tom Holland, it’s a franchise made for the big screen.

Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves brings together the two PS4 entries in the franchise, Uncharted 4: A Thieve’s End and Uncharted: Lost Legacy for a new PlayStation 5 collection that provides a healthy boost in fidelity to two of the best looking games on the PlayStation 4.

Both games now feature DualSense haptics, which particularly shines when Nathan is crashing through windows or shielding himself against a wave of heavy gunfire. 3D audio is also well implemented, and the right pair of headphones, or speaker system, will make you feel like you’re sitting in the perfect seat in the cinema to watch the latest action blockbuster.

Both games offer a full 4K mode, locked at 30FPS, an adaptive 4K mode which scales from 1440p, but at 60 FPS and a 1080p mode at 120FPS. We played the majority of the game in the 4K adaptive mode at 60FPS and it looks fantastic throughout. The higher, consistent frame rate also makes combat encounters feel much better than they did on the PlayStation 4, the loose, inaccurate shooting is much tighter now.

While the 120FPS mode is novel, and we’re glad we could try it out, there are so few monitors that can display it, and the game’s action isn’t anywhere near fast enough for it to feel like a real advantage, especially at the cost of resolution.

Uncharted 4: A Thieve’s End is an incredibly gripping story about self-reflection, and what’s important in a person’s life. Following three games of supernatural twists and killing literally hundreds and hundreds of people, Uncharted 4 thinks about what life would be like for Nathan Drake once he’s had his last near scrape with death.

We catch up with a domesticated Nathan some years after the events of Uncharted 3. He’s a diver for a salvage company, but we immediately get the feeling that he’d rather be trading gunfire in darkest Peru with any number of PMCs hunting him down.

Elena, his long-suffering partner and one-time camerawoman can tell that he’s not satisfied, but Nathan refuses to give up the normal life he’s finally achieved, even for one last score. That is, of course, until Sam Drake, Nathan’s thought to be dead older brother returns from the grave, and drags Nathan back into the life.

The strength in the story hangs on Nolan North and Troy Baker’s performances as Nathan and Sam. The two leading men of Naughty Dog’s modern franchises absolutely shine in Uncharted 4, aided by facial animation that sets Naughty Dog apart from most other studios.

While some of the cheesy one-liners remain, the dialogue between the two of them when they’re just walking from place to place is such a highlight that we made sure to seek out every optional piece of dialogue.

The set pieces in the game have never felt grander, and it’s clear that this was intended to be a fond farewell to Drake. Scenes like the jeep chase through the city absolutely shine, and early moments like the auction house heist are showstoppers, with lighting and visuals that the PS4 would never be able to achieve at 60 FPS.

“Scenes like the jeep chase through the city absolutely shine, and early moments like the auction house heist are showstoppers, with lighting and visuals that the PS4 would never be able to achieve at 60 FPS.”

A much better stealth system and more engaging puzzles make Uncharted 4 easily the strongest in the series and one of the very best PlayStation exclusives of the era. It may go on just a little too long, but after 4 mainline games, Drake deserves his moment in the sun, even if he’s falling off a massive building at the same time.

Lost Legacy was originally supposed to be DLC for Uncharted 4 before it was spun off into its own game, and that was a great decision. Starring Chloe Fraser from earlier in the series and Nadine Ross from Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy in many ways feels like an experiment from Naughty Dog to inform its games going forward. On a hunt for the tusk of Ganesh, our new duo of Chloe and Nadine instantly gel and it’s a chemistry that’s a highlight of the game.

The villain of this game, Asav, doesn’t deliver on the extremely promising introduction the character is given, but that’s practically an Uncharted trope at this point, apart from Nadine in Uncharted 4.

Lost Legacy feels like the original Uncharted in a lot of ways. Set almost exclusively in one jungle area, the game is all about a chilly relationship moulding and evolving throughout the narrative. It’s also much shorter than Uncharted 4, with the main quest being around 7 hours, similar to Drake’s first outing.

Speaking of Drake, in a fantastic move, Nathan appears in name only, with each character swapping stories about their adventures with the wise-cracking mass murderer. There’s a lot of great payoff in this dialogue for players that have been through all four of Drake’s adventures before starting the lost legacy.

The game’s main quest features many objectives that can be completed in any order, with the player given access to a mini open-world that is traversed via jeep. These areas feel much bigger than even the larger Uncharted 4 levels, and you can absolutely see a through line between Lost Legacy, and The Last Of Us Part 2’s open areas.

Both Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy are still fantastic games that deserve a second playthrough on PlayStation 5. Naughty Dog’s first outing on the PlayStation 5 is an incredibly strong one, and only makes us even more excited for what it has coming next, and what it will be able to do with this technology.

A full 4K60 mode would have been fantastic, and we suspect it’ll be easily achievable when the PC version of this collection arrives later this year, but that’s a minor blemish on two absolutely excellent games, in one extremely fun package.