Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection Review

"Tale of Two Thieves"

Campaign

January 26, 2022 at 8:58pm
By Jason Stettner

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
The first part of this package concludes the first three games by following an older Nathan Drake. His brother has come into the fold once again, prompting the two to risk it all in order to get some treasure. This of course sends players on a globetrotting adventure across scenic locations with a high sense of danger and new threats.

It’s quite large in scale offering traditional linear areas while also pairing the experience with the odd vast in scale set piece. There’s also a new sense of slightly open world areas that are free for exploration. The game features many collectibles to gather, hidden secrets to find and of course a deep emotional journey that wraps up the franchise. At least, for now.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
This standalone spin-off follows Chloe and a mercenary named Nadine. The two are after a special tusk, with that item having a deep connection to Chloe’s past. This is a smaller story that finds the two exploring a couple more open areas while also battling in a couple traditional linear spaces.

It features the same over the top moments as the main line entries, but just in a more intimate scenario. It’s got the action you expect, the danger you crave and of course a deeper look at some of the side characters that didn’t a huge showcase within the fourth entry.

Gameplay

There aren’t really any huge upgrades here with this sort of remaster. It’s basically just a slightly upgraded port of what are two generally solid games. In fact, I quite loved the fourth game so that’s the real strength here though Lost Legacy isn’t too bad either. The multiplayer has been stripped away here as well, so don’t expect that to be present.

It’s just the single player experience. We see a few visual options presented here, with minimal changes to the core games. That of course makes a lot of sense as the games were already quite visually stunning though at the same time I can’t help but feel further advancements could have been made.

It does somewhat feel as though they could have just updated the existing options. What we’re getting here for the quality options include Performance, Performance Plus and finally Fidelity. With performance we’re seeing 1440p at 60fps. This is followed by Performance Plus which offers a high frame rate of 120fps at 1080p.

This is quite a visual dip while at the same time being very fluid which is great. Finally the Fidelity mode provides the best visual presentation at a native 4k resolution at 30fps. While these choices are great, it would have also been nice to get a dynamic 4k resolution at 60fps choice as it feels that should have been possible on this better hardware.

Visually these games do look gorgeous, with the detailed worlds continuing to shine through within this latest release. There is incredible character performances, and the stories are generally healthy in terms of longevity. The new controller is used effectively, and in general the movement of the games feel great.

I did notice that combat hasn’t necessarily aged as well, at least to me. It’s good for a quick rush, yet at the same time not as satisfying as I recall it being in comparison to the journey based around exploration and discovery. There are of course difficulty options to select between here if you need to make things more casual. Don’t forget the odd puzzle to solve, for what’s quite an adventurous time.

The Conclusion

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection brings together two great games in one package, but with minor upgrades that don’t really push gaming like they did at launch. It really comes across as an easy going effort that doesn’t truly take advantage of the new hardware.

It’s great to have the new higher frame rate option, and in general to not lose too much resolution in favor of an expected performance level. This is a great way to experience these enjoyable games, but if you’ve played them recently you really shouldn’t expect much in terms of changes. Your saves luckily carry over easily which is appreciated, but they’re not massively upgraded.

Once again, multiplayer has been removed so this is just the two single player titles. It would have been nice to see the whole franchise upgraded here as it’s odd to jump in so late, but it’s great to see games get any next generation support so that they can be enjoyed by new players over the console’s lifespan.

Read our Nathan Drake Collection Review
View our Uncharted Hub

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection Review on Playstation 5
Review Code Provided by SIEC

Rating Overall: 8.5