uncharted has been a tentpole franchise for Sony since the first game came out in 2007, so it’s not surprising that the games have been revamped for newer consoles over the years. Developer Naughty Dog first brought the original PS3 trilogy to PS4 in 2015 as The Nathan Drake Collection, improving visual fidelity and frame rates. Now the company pull the same trick featuring the two PS4 games in the series: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection arrives on the PS5 this Friday, nearly five years after Naughty Dog last released a new game in the series. The $50 collection features a number of technical and visual improvements, but the games themselves are identical to the PS4 versions. I’ve spent about the last week playing both games in the Legacy of Thieves Collection to see how they hold up and to see who this pack is for.
Sony / Naughty Dog
There are three visual modes here, all of which improve upon the original PS4 game. A “Fidelity” setting keeps the frame rate at 30 fps but renders games in full 4K resolution. The performance mode, on the other hand, lets the games run at 60 fps, but makes no promises about the exact resolution. Finally, there’s a “Performance+” mode for folks with 120Hz TVs – games run at 120fps at a locked 1080p resolution.
I don’t have a 120Hz TV so can’t tell what this mode looked like, but both the Fidelity and Performance modes looked just spectacular. Uncharted 4 was nice enough when I played it in 1080p in 2016; The cold, snowy vistas of Scotland and the wild landscapes of Madagascar look even better in 4K with HDR. The improved resolution is also appreciated in The Lost Legacy’s dark, shadowy opening.
Sony / Naughty Dog
Although things looked great in Fidelity mode, I spent almost all of my time playing the game in Performance mode as the improved frame rates simply provide a better gaming experience. I don’t seem to have the keenest eye, as I couldn’t tell the difference in resolution between Fidelity and Performance, so sticking with 60fps mode was a no-brainer. Of course, your mileage and TV will vary. Had I been playing on a TV larger than my modest 43-inch model, or through a projection system, I might have found Fidelity mode more valuable.
There are a number of other improvements that make these games feel right for the PS5 too. First off, the games support the adaptive triggers on the PS5 controller, which adds resistance and a different feel when firing your guns (which you do a lot in both games). Combined with the improved feel of the PS5 controller, the two games in Legacy of Thieves feel more immersive than on the PS4.
Thanks to the PS5 SSD and more powerful hardware, the loading times are also wonderfully short. If the game wasn’t already running, it still took less than a minute to load my progress and get back into the adventure. I’ve never really thought about load times when gaming on the PS4, but I went back and confirmed the unsurprising fact that the PS5 is much faster.
As for the games themselves, both A Thief’s End and The Lost Legacy are holding up well. They look beautiful, the stories are compelling and more complicated than the previous games, and the gameplay is also more varied than the original trilogy. On the other hand, it remains extremely difficult to reconcile the light-hearted tone of Nathan Drake, the protagonist in A Thief’s End, with the massive body count he amasses over the course of the game.
Sony / Naughty Dog
The stakes are high, but Drake is a charming and charismatic adventurer – despite the fact that he finds himself in a sticky situation and has to pull off a huge heist to save his brother’s skin, he’s not a dead-serious main hero. But he is deadly, killing dozens during his quest. It’s easy enough to just go where the game takes you and not overthink it, but it’s worth noting that six years later, the two sides of Drake still don’t sit particularly well together.
The Lost Legacy puts you in control of another anti-hero, Chloe Frazer, the treasure hunter who appeared in Uncharted 2 and 3. It’s the first Uncharted game where Nathan Drake isn’t the main character, and it has a slightly darker tone overall – Frazer and her companion Nadine Ross are just as deadly as Drake, but it fits their personality and the story a little better. While we’re talking about The Lost Legacy, it’s worth pointing out that the game originally sold for $40 and wasn’t meant to have the same scope as Uncharted 4. as such, it’s much shorter (a standard playthrough lasts around seven or eight hours).
Sony / Naughty Dog
Aside from any concerns about the Ludonarrative dissonance in these games (something that is come up a lot with Naughty Dog games), they are fun, beautiful, and sprawling adventures. If you’ve never played Uncharted games before, you can pick up the Legacy of Thieves Collection and get a ton of game value for your $50. Sure, you won’t know Drake’s entire backstory, but A Thief’s End fills in the blanks well enough even if you don’t know every detail of his past adventures.
I’m a completer, so I have a slight hesitation in telling someone to jump straight into the fourth game in a four part series. I’d recommend spending $20 on Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, which is one Remaster of the three PS3 games in the series – but Uncharted 4 holds up well enough on its own. As for The Lost Legacy, its protagonists take center stage for the first time, so their roles in previous games aren’t particularly important to the story at hand.
If you enjoyed the original Uncharted trilogy but somehow missed those games on PS4, the Legacy of Thieves Collection is a no-brainer. However, if you’ve played them before, it’s a little less clear-cut. Improved frame rates and visual quality are solid updates to bring the games into the PS5 era, but they don’t fundamentally change the experience. However, Sony is offering the Legacy of Thieves Collection for just $10 if you’ve previously purchased A Thief’s End or The Lost Legacy. For the many folks who love the series, the $10 is well spent as these games hold up well – and look and play better than ever on the PS5.
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