The best Uncharted game hands down. Not only is it a great sendoff to these characters we've followed, it repackages everything good from the first three and refined it. It's easy to tell there's a sense of restraint with everything this does as an Uncharted game. Part of this comes with it being by Naughty Dog who just made The Last of Us, and their experience bled into the Uncharted formula. From the get-go it's clear that the approach taken here is much more grounded into personal stakes rather than the casual, fantastical approach the first three Uncharted games had. This would seem like odd synergy for Uncharted because let's be real here these games thrive only on cool action set pieces for a reason. But I was surprised how taking the narrative more seriously, scaling down the scope just enough, was the limitations Uncharted needed to push itself into genuine greatness.
The gameplay is, dare I say, "good". Not quite the massive overhaul since everything mechanically plays the same as before, though TLOU definitely bled into the gorgeous open environments rich in detail, but it's a huge modern step up from the dated PS3-era shallowness of the first three. I don't know why it took the fourth entry for a developer to introduce a grappling hook as the most obvious gameplay mechanic for an archeological explorer but it's better late than never I suppose. The action set pieces are the best this series has to offer. They're not all quite as ridiculously bombastic in scope and scale as something like Uncharted 2 or 3 but they feel better implemented whenever they do happen. I think the more grounded approach helped make these action sequences stand out more effectively than how Uncharted previously handles it which is pretty loose and fire.
The story is also the best in the series because it felt like they actually tried. Uncharted 1's story was foundational for sure but very generic as far as pulpy action adventures go. Uncharted 2's story is a very fun blockbuster except for whenever they try to make it dramatic and it falls flat. Uncharted 3's story makes the biggest attempt than the last two but is messy and woefully unsatisfying. Yeah I'm not kidding when I say these games really only thrive on their bombastic spectacles to make up for their shortcomings. Uncharted 4 makes a lot of questionable narrative choices beyond it's general approach to the characters, like retconing Nathan Drake has this brother the whole time apparently, or that Nathan Drake is once again going on one last adventure. But what sold me on the adventure this time around was how Uncharted 4 was willing to address all the plot threads that Uncharted 3 brought up only to just awkwardly handwave them away. The inclusion of Sam Drake actually felt incredibly justified in giving the needed introspection to explore who Nathan Drake is and what do these people mean to him. They even managed to make the lost city and treasure being tracked down again have thematic ties to the characters' journey for once which makes it memorable beyond being another Indiana Jones styled wild goose hunt MacGuffin to chase.
Naughty Dog even managed to finally give this series a good fucking villain! Yeah he's not exactly Bob Page as far as megalomaniac corporate rich villains tend to go, but since he's just Kieran Culkin's character from Succession, works as a thematic foil to Nathan Drake, and is one of the two characters who calls him out for being a culturally dated basic ass white male Joss Whedon quipping machine I just grew to love this guy.
There's some aspects holding it back for me. The bulk of it boils down to basically being a fantastic conclusion to a series of games I already just don't really care too much for or find "great" so this doesn't have too much emotional affect on me. Also the slower "movie"-like pace and usual over reliance on Naughty Dog's now trademarked walk-and-talk sequences every game developer copies now makes certain chapters drag out longer than needed. It's not a total deal breaker because this is the conclusion to a quadrilogy that needs to do all the work for it to feel like a satisfying send off to these characters but I'd rather it be trimmed down a bit regardless.
The gameplay is, dare I say, "good". Not quite the massive overhaul since everything mechanically plays the same as before, though TLOU definitely bled into the gorgeous open environments rich in detail, but it's a huge modern step up from the dated PS3-era shallowness of the first three. I don't know why it took the fourth entry for a developer to introduce a grappling hook as the most obvious gameplay mechanic for an archeological explorer but it's better late than never I suppose. The action set pieces are the best this series has to offer. They're not all quite as ridiculously bombastic in scope and scale as something like Uncharted 2 or 3 but they feel better implemented whenever they do happen. I think the more grounded approach helped make these action sequences stand out more effectively than how Uncharted previously handles it which is pretty loose and fire.
The story is also the best in the series because it felt like they actually tried. Uncharted 1's story was foundational for sure but very generic as far as pulpy action adventures go. Uncharted 2's story is a very fun blockbuster except for whenever they try to make it dramatic and it falls flat. Uncharted 3's story makes the biggest attempt than the last two but is messy and woefully unsatisfying. Yeah I'm not kidding when I say these games really only thrive on their bombastic spectacles to make up for their shortcomings. Uncharted 4 makes a lot of questionable narrative choices beyond it's general approach to the characters, like retconing Nathan Drake has this brother the whole time apparently, or that Nathan Drake is once again going on one last adventure. But what sold me on the adventure this time around was how Uncharted 4 was willing to address all the plot threads that Uncharted 3 brought up only to just awkwardly handwave them away. The inclusion of Sam Drake actually felt incredibly justified in giving the needed introspection to explore who Nathan Drake is and what do these people mean to him. They even managed to make the lost city and treasure being tracked down again have thematic ties to the characters' journey for once which makes it memorable beyond being another Indiana Jones styled wild goose hunt MacGuffin to chase.
Naughty Dog even managed to finally give this series a good fucking villain! Yeah he's not exactly Bob Page as far as megalomaniac corporate rich villains tend to go, but since he's just Kieran Culkin's character from Succession, works as a thematic foil to Nathan Drake, and is one of the two characters who calls him out for being a culturally dated basic ass white male Joss Whedon quipping machine I just grew to love this guy.
There's some aspects holding it back for me. The bulk of it boils down to basically being a fantastic conclusion to a series of games I already just don't really care too much for or find "great" so this doesn't have too much emotional affect on me. Also the slower "movie"-like pace and usual over reliance on Naughty Dog's now trademarked walk-and-talk sequences every game developer copies now makes certain chapters drag out longer than needed. It's not a total deal breaker because this is the conclusion to a quadrilogy that needs to do all the work for it to feel like a satisfying send off to these characters but I'd rather it be trimmed down a bit regardless.