The Impact Factor

Greatness From Small Beginnings

Review

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Naughty Dog (PS4)

Abstract: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a fantastic send off to one of PlayStation’s marquee franchises. Naughty Dog is peerless at crafting cinematic narrative adventures and their skill shines through in Uncharted 4. The game tells a more nuanced narrative than previous entries, filled with great character moments, dialogue, and themes that resonate throughout your experience. Uncharted 4 features smart improvements to nearly all gameplay systems, from more rewarding combat to more thrilling platforming. Uncharted 4 will no doubt be a highlight of 2016 and is easily one of my favorite games this year.

Sic parvis magna. “Greatness from small beginnings.” These are the words that accompanied the intrepid Nathan Drake throughout his five game journey. The words ring true for the franchise as a whole. Naughty Dog had accrued trust with their earlier titles, Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, but hadn’t really made it into the hall of the ‘greats’. Their first outing on the PS3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, looked to propel the studio to new heights. The jaw-dropping Uncharted 2 all but solidified their claim. Nearly a decade after the series began, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End marks the conclusion to the widely-acclaimed series. And what an ending it was.

I apologize in advance for a bit of hyperbole here, but Uncharted 4 is the best action movie I’ve ever played. Uncharted 4 builds upon the series’s past successes meaningfully, draws inspiration from its contemporaries, and delivers a nuanced adventure that is not only satisfying in its own right but confidently concludes Nathan Drake’s adventures.

Uncharted 4 takes place several years after the conclusion of the previous game. We find Nathan Drake living a quiet life, working salvage and stamping papers behind a desk. The game’s story revolves around Sam Drake, Nathan’s older brother (whom we had never heard of before). You quickly discover that Sam is not as dead as Nathan thought, and that he is in desperate need of Nathan’s help. Sam needs to finish an adventure the two started over 15 years ago – finding the legendary pirate Henry Avery’s long lost treasure. We follow their quest around the world, following hidden clues, solving deadly puzzles, fighting against an entire militia who wants the treasure for themselves, and for the first time, introspection. Uncharted 4’s narrative is more than just setpieces and globetrotting; it’s about Nathan Drake and the life he has led up to this point. Uncharted 4 is not a standalone adventure. Moreso than any Uncharted game before it, Uncharted 4 is a direct sequel to the narrative threads laid out by its predecessors. It’s for this fact that I want to clarify right now that you should not play Uncharted 4 before playing the previous Uncharted games. You will miss out on too much, from call backs to character moments.

Welcome to the end of a great adventure.

In reading other reviews, I’ve seen the word “mature” being tossed around to describe Uncharted 4’s story. Maturity is a complex and abstract concept, so I want to avoid using it here. Uncharted 4’s plot, however, is more nuanced than previous entries. It has a depth, mostly via a real exploration of its character’s motivations and personalities, that made what happens feel more substantive. As much as I loved Nathan from previous adventures, he was a pretty one note character – a quippy ubermensch. He was the fun-having, joke-cracking, bad guy-killing treasure hunter we all know from pulp fiction. In Uncharted 4, though, we’re given a more nuanced view of Drake. Why is he the way he has been in previous games? What motivates his treasure hunting? What makes him uncomfortable with normal life? Is Nathan Drake a good person? This exploration of character extends to many of the game’s supporting cast, from Sam to Elena to Sullivan. Character development is bolstered by Uncharted 4’s decision to pair Nathan up with a partner throughout the game. Similar to what we saw in The Last of Us, this partnering allowed for fantastic back and forths between characters (made even better by the game’s great writing). Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give the story is this: it never felt secondary to the action or setpieces. Uncharted 3 in particular felt like it wanted cool moments above all, and made a story to support their inclusion. In Uncharted 4, everything is about the end of Nathan’s adventure and his relationships to the people who know him best. Uncharted 4 wraps up Nathan Drake’s adventures in a deeply satisfying way.

 

There are action setpieces to be found, of course, but Uncharted 4
 always puts the characters and narrative first.

I appreciated the layers present in Uncharted 4’s narrative, too. The game is more than just one last adventure for a famous treasure hunter and his long lost brother. Uncharted 4 comments on the very nature of chasing impossible dreams. Nathan Drake’s last adventure is scaffolded with characters, and collectibles, that serve as an allegory for his arc. Essentially every character in the game, alive or dead, is a reflection of one of Nathan’s qualities. The overarching theme to the game is the cost of ambition. Naughty Dog does a phenomenal job at reinforcing this theme throughout, while avoiding clichés. For example, Uncharted 4 has phenomenal environmental storytelling. The world, and the collectibles within, offer side narratives and characters that meaningfully add to the story taking place at the game’s surface. Repeat playthroughs would no doubt further elucidate Uncharted 4’s dense narrative world, which makes me respect it all the more.

 

Where is the line between greed and ambition? What is
worth losing in pursuit of treasure?

Uncharted 4 is not just narrative, however. There is a whole lot to like about the gameplay. Uncharted 4 is a wonderful optimization of the franchise’s gameplay. Combat saw across the board improvements. For the first time, shooting felt asterisk-free “good.” Guns sound and look and aim like you would expect them to. Each weapon has an identity, which was great, as low ammo meant you constantly have to use whatever you can find. Enemy encounters feel handcrafted in the best possible way, giving players a dynamic environment that favors mobility and shifting tactics over hiding behind one piece of cover for the entire fight. Stealth has been improved, making it viable to silently take out the majority of your foes. Uncharted 4 added several quality of life features to combat as well. For players who want to engage with the story, but aren’t great at aiming, the game offers an auto-lock on feature that can be toggled on or off at any time. All enemies can be marked, giving players the tools to better plan their attack. On top of all that, Uncharted 4’s enemies are the least bullet sponge-y than they have ever been. Even on the hardest difficulty enemies go down with a few well-placed shots. This not only reinforces player skill but keeps the game’s momentum moving forward at all times.

Platforming, another essential part of Uncharted, has seen similar across the board improvements. The animations in this game are incredible, reinforcing the physicality of both the world and characters as you jump and climb your way around. Navigating through the environments has been made decidedly less constrained. Uncharted 4 offers several paths for players to take to get from A to B, from its more open environments down to even the handholds or ledges themselves. It removes the feeling of being shuttled down a corridor, enhancing immersion. Uncharted 4 introduces a series first handful of truly open environments. You have a set objective, but are free to wander and explore beautifully detailed and wide-open spaces. These are hit and miss, unfortunately. I enjoyed the sense of discovery and the great dialogue that happened while exploring, but overall the environments felt a bit too large (& too empty) to be worth scouring. A minor gripe to be sure, as you don’t spend long in any of these settings, but one that could have been tweaked to improve the player experience.

 

Encounters encourage mobility and experimentation.
No more being trapped behind chest high cover!

Puzzles make their return, of course, and are better than ever. For a game that so heavily relies on narrative momentum, puzzles can be a risky proposition. You don’t want the player to torture themselves trying to figure out something overly complex. Nor do you want them to be so easy they might as well have not been there. Uncharted 4 straddles this boundary perfectly. Some puzzles are more successful than others, but for the most part, all are just hard enough and just quick enough that I felt both satisfied to have solved it and happy to move forward. One puzzle in particular, found at the end of the game (symbols on floor squares), is now a franchise favorite of mine. Serious Indiana Jones vibes in all the right ways.

 

You won't be scratching your head too long trying to solve Uncharted 4's
puzzles. Which is great!

The biggest change to the Uncharted gameplay formula, rather than just refinements, is the addition of the rope. Nathan and his brother come equipped with a grappling hook-tipped rope that they use liberally throughout their adventure. The rope’s inclusion is odd at first, since Nathan was never previously the Tarzan type, but it eventually clicked and added a nice new layer to playing. Hilariously, its inclusion is even explained through the narrative. Swinging from cliff edge to cliff edge adds tension to platforming. Swinging around in the open air creates some beautiful vistas. Last minute hooking onto distant structures is built into some of the game’s best setpieces. The rope also adds to the dynamism of combat. Several of the game’s combat encounters have rope points, allowing you to swing action movie style from building to building, firing upon foes from midair. All it took was one dramatic midair headshot from my AK-47 to melt away all my rope skepticism. It’s a great addition.

It's hard not to grow attached to the rope. Moment-to-moment or action setpiece,
the rope is consistently fun.

As I mentioned on our podcast, Naughty Dog is peerless in the industry. No one can deliver gripping cinematic narrative adventures like they can. One of the ways in which they solidify their number one spot is just how fantastically detail oriented the team is there. Tender love and care bleed through every corner of Uncharted 4. For starters, Uncharted 4 is probably the most graphically stunning game I’ve ever seen. Character models, facial expressions, physics, environments: Uncharted 4 is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I honestly do not even know how they do it. Uncharted 4 looks better than other games running at max specs on several thousand dollar PCs. It’s crazy.  The TLC goes much further than looks, though. Everything in the game is scripted well, reacts naturally, and feels real. The game has a ton of extra features and accommodations to players of all skill levels, interest levels, and engagement. Upon beating the game you unlock a wealth of content, including game modifiers (like spawning guns or bullet time mode) to aesthetic features (like a full 8-bit mode) to unlocking specific encounters for players to replay. The game’s epilogue in particular showcases how much Naughty Dog cares about its characters, its world, and its fans. Uncharted 4 is a rich game.

My eyes welled up with tears when I set the controller down at the end of my adventure. Uncharted is always a series I liked, but after A Thief’s End, it’s now a series I love. Nathan Drake is definitively done adventuring, so I guess I have to be too. It was great seeing him through his fantastic adventure, and I’m thrilled that Uncharted got a perfect send off with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. I’ll miss you, buddy.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

5/5