Release Date: 22/08/2017
Played On: PS4
Available On: PS4
Time Played: 7h 16m
Progress: Completed
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Sometimes I find it quite difficult to sum up my feelings on a big budget game from a large studio. Partly because the good studios have a track record of making decent games with few issues and that doesn't really make for much of a discussion. When my opinion of a game is a simple "it's good", I tend not to make much of a stink about it, even though it probably deserves some praise.
Such is the case with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, as there is very little wrong with this game. Although there's also nothing to blow your mind and tell all your friends about either. Perhaps it's enough to say that if you enjoy the Uncharted series, then this short spin-off will be worth a try, but then I feel like I'm under-selling it. This might end up being a discussion about having nothing to discuss, but I'll press on regardless.
The basic premise is that instead of playing as everyone's favourite mass-murdering Lara Croft analogue Nathan Drake, we take control of Chloe Frazier. You remember her right? She's the one who Drake had a fling with, but maybe she's the villain, but then they're kind of steamy on each other anyway? Yeah that one… she has an accent that isn't American.
Anyway, we play as Chloe for The Lost Legacy, except that's basically where the differences end. When you finished the other Uncharted games you received the opportunity to swap out the Nathan Drake player model for a bunch of other characters in the game, including Chloe. This time it feels like you had the option from the start and never bothered with the Nathan Drake skin because we're sick of looking at his bum anyway.
If I'm being completely reductive, I'd say that everything else in The Lost Legacy is Uncharted 101, par-for-the-course, straight from the Drake play-book. I can't remember the minutia of the story very well, but let's just broad stroke it and say that you're tasked with hunting down some ancient artefact before the bad guys get it and end the world. It's just like any other Uncharted plot, which is to say that it's just like any other Tomb Raider plot, which is to say that it's Indiana Jones through and through.
Jokes aside though, I've always enjoyed Tomb Raider games, and by the same token I've always enjoyed the Uncharted series. While The Lost Legacy continues on the formula tight-rope, it also maintains everything good about the series that I enjoy and expect to see.
In fact the only real deviation from Nathan Drake's starring role, is that there seems to be a larger focus on stealth gameplay in The Lost Legacy. Apparently Chloe would rather sneak around a bit more, but in my game I ended up mowing down just as many bad dudes in open gunfights, so it's probably not all that different after all.
Maybe it's the narrative and character development that stands out a little more in The Lost Legacy. You spend most of your time teamed up with Nadine Ross, who you may remember as the third female character to ever be in an Uncharted game (or near enough anyway). Throughout your adventure together, there are more than a few moments where Chloe and Nadine share a few sentences that make them seem like real humans. Although, it does get a bit on the nose when they shove a conversation about poster boy Nathan Drake into the mix. If I was ever beginning to take these characters seriously, that moment in the dialogue killed it forever.
The rest of the story is everything you would expect and nothing more. There are the usual quips and comments we're used to hearing Drake spout as we stumble around, but this time it's Chloe. Thankfully though, the adventure is fun to go along with and explore, as The Lost Legacy maintains the standard we're used to in an Uncharted game. I suppose the disappointment has to be from those glimpses of actual character development that are quickly brushed aside before they get a chance to really plant their roots.
Mechanically speaking, The Lost Legacy is a carbon copy of Uncharted 4, which is neither surprising, or a bad thing. After all, this is a short spin-off so it would be weird if they introduced some new systems or drastically overhauled the game engine in some way. Instead we get a bunch of the other stuff we've already seen and enjoyed.
Happily, one of my favourite elements of the series has been kept, which is the overall detail in the world that we're tasked with exploring. In populated areas there's a bunch of people and the crap that people leave around and fill spaces with. I love it when level designers and artists really take the time to add a realistic amount of clutter and useless objects into the space we're playing through. It only adds to the authenticity and makes everything that much more believable.
The same can be said for one of the largest areas in the game, which is a relatively open area that gives the player a little bit of choice about how to proceed. They did something similar in Uncharted 4 (if I remember correctly), where you were given a four-wheel drive and were able to pick from a number of objectives.
Fortunately this is about as open as the game gets, which I prefer for this type of experience. As much as I love open world games, I don't think that every game needs to be turned into an open world experience. There's something to be said for a directed and tailored narrative that pushes you along a linear path. Often this allows a game to really take you on a journey thanks to having control over the pacing and where your attention is spent at any given moment. I've always enjoyed the thrill ride that an Uncharted game can take its audience on, so I'm glad they didn't go all in with the open world stuff.
With that in mind though, I did enjoy the open areas in The Lost Legacy, as they seemed to come at the tight time in the game and actually aren't all that open anyway. The map is pretty small and takes about a minute to circumnavigate, so we're not talking about much more than a big room where you get to pick your next mission.
So there really isn't anything spectacular going on for The Lost Legacy, but there's not a lot wrong with it either. This is what I mean about games like this being hard to write about, because there isn't a lot to get stuck into and pick apart. I suppose that might be the biggest criticism I can muster for such a series; that there's nothing unexpected happening at all.
Everything in the Uncharted games has been polished and produced to a beautiful end product that's without a doubt an entertaining game to play. Sure they're not without flaws, but most of the small glitches can easily be overlooked when you're having a blast and eager to see where the next turn will take you. It's an odd feeling, but despite all the positive elements, I can't help but feel a bit grey about these kind of games these days.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that instead of doing a lot of new things, these kind of games just stick to doing old things really well. I joke about Uncharted being a clone of Tomb Raider, which is a clone of Indiana Jones, but I'm kind of serious about that as well. While playing The Lost Legacy there was very little that made me think I was playing something new and fresh. I still had a great time from start to finish, but it just felt like what comes next.
To put it another way, it's the same reason I have a hard time getting into big blockbuster movie franchises like the Marvel Universe films. There's nothing really wrong with them, but once you've seen one or two, the rest are just more of the same. They may still be enjoyable and escalate the story and characters involved, but essentially you're not seeing anything new with each sequel.
Blockbuster games are kind of the same, regardless of how good the franchise actually is. I've played every game in the Uncharted series, some of them I've played twice and earned a platinum trophy. There's no doubt in my mind that these are some of the best contemporary gaming experiences available on a console, but this has become a firm part of the Pizza Hut of video game franchises. It doesn't matter how much I love pizza, I feel a bit sick if I eat it all the time.
So maybe The Lost Legacy came along at just the right time. I was ready for one last adventure in the Uncharted universe, but I'm glad it was a shorter one with some different bums to look at. If this had been Uncharted 5 I would have been expecting something new and exciting, but as a spin-off I was happy to enjoy it for what it was.
Of course there's nothing new going on in The Lost Legacy, but that's actually alright this time. I just hope they let the franchise rest once and for all before it becomes an uncontrollable monster of repetitive garbage. Right now the series is an essential experience for anyone on a Playstation. Let's try and keep it that way.