Holy shit this game is amazing. Far and away the best game in the Uncharted series. It takes everything I love about Uncharted and executes it perfectly. The set pieces are bigger and more beautiful than ever. The action is more fluid, intense, and over the top. The platforming is more refined. The levels are a lot more open, which plays well into the whole “globe-trotting adventurer/explorer” idea. It’s just all around an incredible experience to play.
The graphics in this game are amazing as well. It’s easily one of the best looking games I’ve ever played. It honestly looks better than The Last of Us 2. It might not have quite the same graphical fidelity, but the brighter lighting and more vivid color palette are much more of a treat on the eyes. It still looks better than most other games out today, even four years after release. The gunplay is amazing as well. The bullets have a thick and crisp thud to them that feels incredibly satisfying. In the first three games, the gunplay did its job well enough to get you along, but it certainly wasn’t anything to brag about. The guns in Uncharted 4 though, feel better than most third-person shooters I’ve played. There’s just this satisfying smoothness to the weapons that’s hard to perfectly explain. It’s so good that I’m actually compelled to play the multiplayer.
Uncharted 4 has the best story in the series by far. It takes the more mature themes they were going for in the third game and runs with it. This story is significantly longer than the previous games, with far more depth to both its characters and themes. It experiments even further with the narrative structure, using circular narrative, well-timed flashbacks, etc., to keep the plot more engaging than if it were perfectly linear. This is a much more human take on Uncharted. There’s significantly more dialogue, exposition, and world-building. The reason for going after the treasure has actual weight to it other than “I heard about this treasure, sounds fun, let’s go find it because I’m an adventurer”. It plays off your nostalgia well. The whole game has a very nostalgic feel to it, with Nate and Co. reminiscing about past adventures, and questioning whether this one was worth dusting off the holster for. One thing this game does an incredible job of story-wise as well is making you feel exactly what Nate is feeling. When you’re in the wild car chase/shootout in King’s Bay, I felt that same insane rush that Nate was experiencing, and when he walked into his house afterward and saw Elena standing there, my heart dropped and I had to pause the game to freak out for a second, which again is exactly what Nate felt in that moment.
Something I’ve always loved about Naughty Dog games is how well they incorporate the narrative into the gameplay. The gameplay doesn’t just serve as a means to get to the next story element. The story is delicately woven throughout the world in a way that is genuine and infectious. It totally absorbs the player. The gameplay makes you feel the emotions of Nathan Drake just as much as the cutscenes do. There are so many little moments within the gameplay that caught me by surprise and made the story that much more believable. At one point closer to the end of the game, when the tension between Nate and Elena has been mostly mended, I was in an intense shootout with some Shoreline mercenaries. One of them had me by the neck, Elena showed up, I punched him in the gut, wrapped my arms around Elena to pick her up, and she kicked him in the face with both feet, killing him. They then had a small exchange, with Nate yelling “Hey good timing!” It was such a tiny detail that happened so fast, but it was so pure and cute that it was memorable. There were also many moments of small, sarcastic banter between Nate and Elena while climbing and exploring that made their dynamic so much more authentic, all within gameplay. This isn’t something I see often in games, and it’s the main reason I love Naughty Dog games so much.
After playing through all of the Uncharted games straight through, I’ve fully realized how much I prefer these shorter, more concise narrative games with little to no fluff, over a 40+ hour-long game of filler garbage. These types of games are often the ones people bring up when discussing games as an art form. A short and sweet, meticulously crafted and presented story-based game of this caliber comes out less often than I’d like. This is the reason I f*cking love Naughty Dog. They continue to put out thrilling masterpieces that prove how great video games are as a medium of storytelling. This is an experience we get maybe a couple of times per generation.
We need to appreciate the ones we get.
The graphics in this game are amazing as well. It’s easily one of the best looking games I’ve ever played. It honestly looks better than The Last of Us 2. It might not have quite the same graphical fidelity, but the brighter lighting and more vivid color palette are much more of a treat on the eyes. It still looks better than most other games out today, even four years after release. The gunplay is amazing as well. The bullets have a thick and crisp thud to them that feels incredibly satisfying. In the first three games, the gunplay did its job well enough to get you along, but it certainly wasn’t anything to brag about. The guns in Uncharted 4 though, feel better than most third-person shooters I’ve played. There’s just this satisfying smoothness to the weapons that’s hard to perfectly explain. It’s so good that I’m actually compelled to play the multiplayer.
Uncharted 4 has the best story in the series by far. It takes the more mature themes they were going for in the third game and runs with it. This story is significantly longer than the previous games, with far more depth to both its characters and themes. It experiments even further with the narrative structure, using circular narrative, well-timed flashbacks, etc., to keep the plot more engaging than if it were perfectly linear. This is a much more human take on Uncharted. There’s significantly more dialogue, exposition, and world-building. The reason for going after the treasure has actual weight to it other than “I heard about this treasure, sounds fun, let’s go find it because I’m an adventurer”. It plays off your nostalgia well. The whole game has a very nostalgic feel to it, with Nate and Co. reminiscing about past adventures, and questioning whether this one was worth dusting off the holster for. One thing this game does an incredible job of story-wise as well is making you feel exactly what Nate is feeling. When you’re in the wild car chase/shootout in King’s Bay, I felt that same insane rush that Nate was experiencing, and when he walked into his house afterward and saw Elena standing there, my heart dropped and I had to pause the game to freak out for a second, which again is exactly what Nate felt in that moment.
Something I’ve always loved about Naughty Dog games is how well they incorporate the narrative into the gameplay. The gameplay doesn’t just serve as a means to get to the next story element. The story is delicately woven throughout the world in a way that is genuine and infectious. It totally absorbs the player. The gameplay makes you feel the emotions of Nathan Drake just as much as the cutscenes do. There are so many little moments within the gameplay that caught me by surprise and made the story that much more believable. At one point closer to the end of the game, when the tension between Nate and Elena has been mostly mended, I was in an intense shootout with some Shoreline mercenaries. One of them had me by the neck, Elena showed up, I punched him in the gut, wrapped my arms around Elena to pick her up, and she kicked him in the face with both feet, killing him. They then had a small exchange, with Nate yelling “Hey good timing!” It was such a tiny detail that happened so fast, but it was so pure and cute that it was memorable. There were also many moments of small, sarcastic banter between Nate and Elena while climbing and exploring that made their dynamic so much more authentic, all within gameplay. This isn’t something I see often in games, and it’s the main reason I love Naughty Dog games so much.
After playing through all of the Uncharted games straight through, I’ve fully realized how much I prefer these shorter, more concise narrative games with little to no fluff, over a 40+ hour-long game of filler garbage. These types of games are often the ones people bring up when discussing games as an art form. A short and sweet, meticulously crafted and presented story-based game of this caliber comes out less often than I’d like. This is the reason I f*cking love Naughty Dog. They continue to put out thrilling masterpieces that prove how great video games are as a medium of storytelling. This is an experience we get maybe a couple of times per generation.
We need to appreciate the ones we get.