Uncharted has always been the frontrunner of cinematic presentation in video games, but it's always been a backhanded compliment to say that this series' defining quality is how well it imitates something it's not. Like Uncharted 3 before it, Uncharted 4's story, more specifically its dedication to its characters, elevates it as more than just a movie with a half-baked video game on top.

The story is pretty much just the Incredibles: a husband gets drawn back into the life of his glory days, ends up marooned and alone on a tropical island, and is saved by the people who love him. And as someone whose favorite movie is the Incredibles, I'm completely down for this.

The first seven chapters are perfect. The pacing, the amount of gunfights, how it sets up Nate and Sam's backstories, introducing Nadine Ross the scariest badass motherfucker in this series, the gorgeous graphics and aesthetics of its locales, the continually impressive performances and cinematography, how the game shows the passage of time at the auction house and when Nate meets Sam again, the slow mundane moments of chapters 3 and 4, they couldn't make it better if they tried.

The thematic journey that Nate takes, mirrored by all the pirates he's tracking down, isn't subtle but is still perfectly poetic. Despite being just as smart if not smarter than the dead pirate kings they're tracking down, neither of the brothers are wise enough to learn the lesson that all of those pirates failed to learn, and their one-way ticket to self-destruction becomes more and more apparent the deeper they dig themselves. The idea of a pirate utopia is so absurd it's nearly comical, and it makes you wonder how anyone, especially the very pirates who founded it, could possibly believe in such a fairy tale, or be surprised that it ended the way it did. But that absurdity is easy to look past because, like Uncharted 3, the story serves its characters over its plot.

It starts to lose me a bit once chapter 8 hits though. The environments are gorgeous, but the pacing begins to falter a bit as the really open areas of the world tour take a bit too long and yet simultaneously take up a fraction of the game's run time, compared to the island which takes nearly half the runtime. On top of that, the character building is put on the back-burner for too long. Sam is the devil on Nate's shoulder, constantly tempting him more and more to the life he rightfully left behind, disguised behind deceit and false guilt. Elena is the angel, the princess who saves him, despite everything he did to betray their trust. Sully is the Jiminy Cricket on his hypothetical third shoulder, his compass that never forces him in any direction and stays with him regardless, but who does his best to steer him towards what's right. The problem is that we don't get enough of these relationships. Sam and Nate are the most fleshed out, but anytime they're on the brink of real tension or change in their relationship, they discover some new path to the treasure and that moment gets postponed. Elena and Nate have some of the best moments in the franchise; this is my favorite iteration of Elena easily, but their tension is also continually postponed and ultimately unresolved. I had moments where I thought to myself "maybe this is the one that doesn't have a happy ending..." but the game is never bold enough to allow for those conversations to happen. Sully, sadly, also just doesn't get enough. He's just kinda there, but he's still fun at least.

That being said, the epilogue is perfect, as is the climactic final boss. Nothing in this game surpasses the spectacle of Uncharted 3, but it's still fantastic and finishes its thematic journey for its characters. And thank God that it's finally a treasure that doesn't have some stupid magic bullshit that transforms everyone into zombies. It's just treasure, and the true corruption comes from the journey itself. Beautiful.

Reviewed on Mar 22, 2023


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