[GO10s] #9: Uncharted: Lost Legacy

Like the majority of the industry in 2009, I thought Uncharted 2 was a revolutionary game that finally merged the techniques known from cinema with what we know about how games work and how players interact with them into something absolutely captivating, immersive and spectacular. The first fully successful translation of action-adventure movies into game format and one of the first admirable implementations of film language into interactive video game sections overall. In terms of camera work, level design and animations, Uncharted 2 broke new grounds that very few developers have been able to reach ever since.

Ten years later, like a decent chunk of developers and critics, I still think Uncharted 2 is one of the best games to be ever made, with undisputable qualities and the ability to check all the marks for all sorts of different types of people with varied preferences. And like a somewhat smaller group of gamers, I have very similar feelings towards the two Uncharted sequels. The ability to repeat the same feats, rekindle the same feelings and create something of mostly on-par quality is enough to earn a place in my heart, not to mention the little experimentations and inventions built on top of the U2 foundation.

But because of smaller novelty, slightly less stellar pacing and lack of a game-changer on par with the U2 train sequence, even I have to admit that I would put these titles slightly lower on my top games lists. And yet after all was said and done, Naughty Dog made one more game, a spin-off with Nathan Drake nowhere in sight, instead focusing on Uncharted 2’s Chloe Frazer and Uncharted 4’s Nadine Ross. Uncharted: Lost Legacy was a title I enjoyed so much that unlike its predecessors, it’s on my Games Of The Decade list.

This time archeological adventures take us to a mountainous region in South India, where the duo treks through remains of the Hoysala Empire in search of an artifact called “Tusk of Ganesh”. I’m not sure if this is just because of recency, or because the entire game is set there, but it’s actually one of the only two regions from the entire series that I can name, yet alone vividly remember. I’m gonna be charitable and say that the writing team just did a much better job weaving the history lessons together with character’s personal stories and the overarching plot. On that note, I thought the story was pretty good in general - it focused on the blurred line where the business ends and personal begins, where ideologies and principles clash with reality. Nothing worth analyzing for hours, but perfectly fit for the action-adventure genre. It was also nice to get a story with the girl duo, I don’t mind Drake’s machismo, but a little change definitely refreshed things up a little.

But if there’s an area where the Uncharted series excelled story-wise, it wasn’t necessarily the script, but rather the narration. The things it’s perhaps most famous for are the action set-pieces with scripted events and unique animations, where the player retains vague amount of control, but the actions on screen resemble what you’re pressing on the controller just enough to feel right. But it’s not just that - it’s all the comments your partners make about what you’re doing that land right in the sweet spot between being contextual and natural. It’s the time I was in the middle of a minigame and it was interrupted for no other reason than the fact my companion got bored. It’s how the challenge develops over time, but also how the game lulled me into a false sense of steady progression before abruptly cutting in with a surprise. How midway through solving a puzzle, an accident changes the rules and setup, forcing me to abandon the old solution and rethink the whole task completely. Danger, urgency, excitement, despair, hope, wonder, relief and happiness - few developers seem to be able to instill emotions in the player as effortlessly as Naughty Dog.

But the key feature that makes LL a standout in the franchise is the small-scale open world where majority of the game takes place. We are put on a patch of terrain, equipped with a car, and given a map with bunch of objectives on it which we can do in any order we want. Moreover, we can discover a sidequest that is a literal treasure hunt, and each piece requires extra-attentive exploration or solving a small puzzle, with a decent amount of variety to them. I’m usually someone who doesn’t bother with sidequests in games because they seem just too tedious and barebones compared to the main ones, but this one got all the attention it needed to be properly engaging. I also like when games do gradation of content for different kinds of players - dividing it not just into obligatory and optional, but also suggesting where’s the cutoff for different levels of interest. Enjoy the game and want more of the same, but don’t necessarily enjoy checking literally every nook and cranny in the world in search for countless collectibles? Here’s a smaller and more guided version of that, in spirit of the game’s theme and taking advantage of the pre-existing open world structure. Needless to say it was something I greatly enjoyed.

Uncharted 4 also experimented with that formula, but from my experience there was too little guiding and narrative push for me to want to do anything but the main quest, and as a result I was left wondering if those were even real open worlds, or just illusions of them. Lost Legacy is overall a shorter and smaller game, but perhaps thanks to this I was more motivated to squeeze all the juice out of it, resulting in a tighter experience. Another thing I think ND improved on was the general flow of stealth and combat. In U4 they put a lot of encounters in very complex areas with lots of verticality and covers, but the AI was very good at flanking the player or flushing them out with grenades, and since player is almost always at a number disadvantage, I really didn’t enjoy a lot of fights back in that game, they were too hectic and I felt like they forced me into a boring playstyle to deal with that. By comparison, arenas in LL seem to be just a tiny bit more linear, have proper chokepoints and enough ways to break the line of sight to allow the player to lose the opponents and reset the situation if they need, which also makes stealthkilling the entire camp a more viable and entertaining option. This time climbing and using grappling hook has been merged with with combat much more successfully.

And thankfully, Lost Legacy also manages to repeat all the the best aspects of the previous installment. Once again we get a marvelous chase sequence, during which we speed through a long route that seems as beautiful and detailed as every other level. Climbing is as fluid and enjoyable as always, environments as awe-inspiring, one liners as on point. It’s definitely my 2nd favorite Uncharted game, and for me, that’s a great achievement, fitting for a title in my top10 of the decade.

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