Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Review

The Lost Legacy:

Fans were upset when they heard that Uncharted 4, released last year, would be Drake’s last outing. The Lost Legacy – an arguably self-referential title – proves that the lineage lost with Drake’s departure doesn’t mean the end for Uncharted. Far from it – The Lost Legacy is a highlight in a series full of highlights, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the storied franchise.

Story:

Focusing instead on Chloe Frazer – Drake’s part-time love interest – and Nadine Ross – who played an antagonistic role in Uncharted 4 – who team up to discover the mysteries of India, and try to find the Tusk of Ganesh.

This duo take the place of series mainstays Nathan Drake, Victor Sullivan and Elena Fisher, and whilst I absolutely love those characters I never missed them during my adventures throughout the Lost Legacy. I would go as far as to say I actively disliked both the leads going into this game – especially Chloe, who threatened to break up my favourite video game couple during Uncharted 2 – so I’m more surprised than anyone to come away from the experience as enamoured with the two leading ladies as I am. They make a great team, with Chloe’s dry sense of humour and quick wit bouncing off the sensible, overly-literal mercenary Nadine. Their slowly building friendship and trust is a great watch, and I found myself smiling and laughing as much as I did at any other Uncharted game. Naughty Dog have a knack for writing likeable characters, and that prowess really shines here.

The story itself is standard Uncharted fair, with our leads racing to find an ancient treasure in a forgotten city before it falls into the wrong hands. The open plateaus of India and the crumbling ruins they hide are as fantastic a backdrop as anything that has come before, and I easily fell for the incredible locale that has been crafted here. The history lessons and discussions on mythology are riveting, as is the race for the treasure itself. The Lost Legacy began life as an expansion pack to Uncharted 4 before the scope got out of hand and demanded a standalone release. As such, all the action and spectacle of a standard Uncharted release has been condensed and crammed into an eight hour run time, and the game feels like a heady rush of the series’ best moments because of it. The pacing really benefits from this breakneck pace, and leads me to believe that future Uncharted titles should also be as focused and condensed as The Lost Legacy.

Gameplay:

If you’ve never clicked with Uncharted before – or had grown tired of its formula before or during U4’s lengthy runtime – nothing here will really change your mind. I’m a fan of this particular brand of Hollywood bombast in videogames, and no one does it better than Naughty Dog with the Uncharted series, but I have a few friends who grew weary of the ‘jump here, shoot this guy’ paint-by-numbers approach to gameplay.

Whilst it’s simple and formulaic, that never distracted me from just what a rush a good Uncharted moment gives. It’s like watching your favourite Indiana Jones movie with the added bonus that you’re directing all the cinematic gunfights and terrifying vertical climbs. The Lost Legacy has, in my opinion, some of the series best arenas for taking out bad guys (whether through Uncharted 4’s wildly improved stealth system or the rope-slinging, shotgun-blasting guns-blazing route) and the most precarious of ascents. It also has a few of the big, high-budget set-pieces the latest mainline entry seemed to mostly ignore, and I loved that they were back in full force.