Why Uncharted 4 is the least Uncharted game in the series

Don’t get me wrong, Uncharted 4 is a great game and I’m not here to dispute that. We The Nerdy’s Sean Capri gave it a perfect score of 10/10 and wrote “Uncharted 4 is the realization of every single aspiration set out by Naughty Dog with the original”. I had similar thoughts myself as I finished the game, but there was an emptiness I felt after completing it. My Uncharted itch that’s been waiting to be scratched since Uncharted 3 back in 2011, was left unscratched. Sure Nathan Drake was still hanging on a ledge and cracking jokes and Sully was still the “dirty old man” we all fell in love with. But there was something lacking, somethings that made it the least ‘Uncharted’ game in the series. To figure out what that is, we need to look at what made Uncharted so special in the first place.

The Cast

Let’s all admit one thing, up until Uncharted 4, the Uncharted series didn’t exactly have the best gameplay. There was a lot of repetition of wave after wave of enemy killing. What made these fun and tolerable is that you always had a buddy by your side you can crack jokes with as you murder hundreds of people. This cast was varied and whenever you were with someone else, you felt the difference. Difference in jokes and conversations, and although the gameplay lacked variance, the revolving cast gave a sense of it.

For example let’s take a look at what many consider to be the best Uncharted game—Uncharted 2. In U2, you hunt Russians in the forest with Sully, you fight across a ravaged city in Nepal with Chole, you spend time in the city with Elena and Jeff, then you hunt Yetis with Tenzin, and you reluctantly solve puzzles with Flynn. Uncharted 3 also had a large cast with many of the above returning and new characters like Salim and Cutter joining along with Nate. These large casts were an important part of Nate’s life and offered various different points of views to his adventure.

In Uncharted 4, the only new friendly character you play with is Sam. In total there are only three characters that you partner with throughout the whole game—Sam, Elena and Sully. A vast majority of the time is spent with Sam. Even though the gameplay was more varied and enjoyable this time around, it got old faster with only having Sam around mostly. Don’t get me wrong, Sam is a great character, but I miss the game changing up character dynamics and personalities drastically and constantly as it did in its previous entries.

Cutting the cast down to a bare bones level might make sense for the story Naughty Dog wanted to tell, but it did not make sense for it being an Uncharted game.

The Set Pieces

Uncharted 2

Uncharted 4

I don’t know about you guys, but I like my Nathan Drake hanging out of derailed trains and falling out of airplanes. The Uncharted series was all about blowing our minds with intricate and epic playable set pieces. Unfortunately, not only did Uncharted 4 lower the scope of their set pieces to less epic events, they also copied most of them from previous games. The biggest set piece of the game was a rehash of the snow truck chase in Uncharted 2. The set pieces involving Shoreline’s tank was extremely similar to the experience with the tank from Uncharted 2’s Tibet level.

Apart from a few moments (the clock tower and riding the jeep through King’s Bay) there was nothing really memorable this time around. It feels lacking the final Uncharted game didn’t give us a set piece that even came close to the one’s they showed us back in 2009.

The Supernatural Element

It felt a little strange when I beat my first Uncharted game and found supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic (as realistic murdering thousands of people can be) game. But since then I grew fond of them and it was exciting to see what the supernatural element was going to be in each game. It was pretty disappointing that there was none in Uncharted 4.

To be fair, Uncharted 3 didn’t have supernatural elements in it either as the demons ended up being a hallucination. But it was done well and real or not, we did get to kill some demons. Although I can’t even imagine how zombie pirates or Henry Avery’s ghost would have fit the narrative in this game, it was still disappointing that we didn’t even get a fake out like Uncharted 3.

Conclusion

Uncharted 4 is a great game that tells a great story which is a fitting end and tribute for Nathan Drake. But I have to wonder, wouldn’t it be a more fitting tribute to remain true to their roots and tell a story that might be bombastic, but at least it’ll be Uncharted. Nathan Drake has earned a quieter and slower final adventure, but that’s not what Uncharted is. To tell their story, Uncharted had to be stripped naked, told to pipe down, and had part of its heart removed. They succeeded in telling their story, but they failed in making a game that was Uncharted.