Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a standalone expansion to Uncharted 4 and the first game in the series to not follow Nathan drake, instead opting to focus on Chloe instead. The story starts off in India, where Chloe travels through the warzone in search of the rebel leader Asav. She joins up with Nadine and together they steal Asav’s disc, which is the key to finding the legendary Golden Tusk of Ganesh. In their search for this treasure, it’ll take them through the wild exotic places that the series is known for.
The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played Uncharted 4 or any other game in the series. Chloe can easily climb and shimmy across ledges, as well as using a rope to swing from place to place. While it is also a third person cover shooter, pretty much all encounters can be gotten past stealthily without alerting the enemy. The gun play is solid, using the trigger buttons to aim and shoot, and there are a variety of guns to use, which are all picked up from the enemy. The melee combat is not that great, and very awkward, particularly when you’re forced to use it during certain fights.
The gun play doesn’t form a huge part of the game, which is great since it’ll get quite repetitive if that was the case. Instead, there is the treasure hunting aspect and while the game is linear overall, in the beginning you’re plonked into a huge map and you set your own pace in exploring all that is hidden. This includes the major structures that you know will progress the game. You get access to a vehicle, and when you get your first glimpse of the wide open area, you’re still left with the same awe as when it happened in Uncharted 4. Although the map may be a bit too big so it can be confusing and overwhelming at first glance.
While exploring, there are light puzzles. These are not designed to be extremely hard and stop you from progressing. They are mostly fairly easy to solve except for the few where it’s challenging. It might combine elements such as timed sections, platforming or rotating / lever puzzles. To be honest, the puzzles are nothing special and we have seen these gimmicks before. They mostly are more of an annoyance rather than being anything clever.
Chloe and Nadine actually have fairly good chemistry and while at the beginning of the game they aren’t too keen on each other, their banter soon indicate otherwise. Despite Nadine being your partner for the game, she barely does anything except fire off a few bullets during gun fights. As expected, the game is filled with big set pieces but unfortunately for the game, we’ve seen a lot of this type so it definitely isn’t as big of an impact as it once would have been. Also, when you’re being chased or fired upon, and the point is to run to the next section, it can get confusing on which path you are supposed to go as it is not clear in the confusion.
After having five games (including the Vita entry), it means that the game doesn’t really hold any surprises anymore. Chloe will jump to a ledge and it’ll crumble but not before she manages to grab onto another ledge. Or she falls down multiple stories but gets back up after a minute or two without any sort of injuries. It just all feels so normal and generic by this point, which is unfortunate since it’s not the game’s fault, it’s just that players has now been desensitized to this genre.
Of course, the game also runs into the problem that the other games had. That is, despite your best efforts in solving the cryptic puzzle in order to be the first person in hundreds of years to gain access into the ruins, the bad guys will easily swarm you soon after. They also don’t have anything stopping them from destroying and blowing everything up as well. Combined with the exaggerated and over the top nature of things and again, it starts to become the norm, lacking the oomph that you’d expect.
After the gigantic open world style map that you get to explore in the early parts of the game, you might be expecting more. That is not the case, since the game then becomes a linear adventure to the finish. This isn’t necessary a bad thing since you already got to spend a few hours playing around, and having a faster pace that the linear section brings means it’s a lot more engaging. The plot moves much more briskly, and it takes this chance to reveal a bit more about Chloe’s past and her family.
The ending rapidly increases the actions, and is one big event after another, which can be quite the rush. Although because it constantly tries to top itself more and more, you might end up with a sense of apathy. Nevertheless, it’s a strong ending to a solid story. Needless to say, the graphics are phenomenal and looks amazing. Although the game can be called slow paced at times since Chloe only jogs, and the action is perhaps stretched a bit too thin at the beginning. There is a lot of downtime spent travelling from place to place. The game started off as a single player DLC of Uncharted 4, so it’s not as long as the mainline entries. It’s still of a decent length and the high quality more than makes up for it though. It takes around seven to eight hours to complete your first playthrough at a leisurely pace. There are plenty of collectibles scattered around each area.
Overall, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy might fall into the category of being more of the same, however, it is still a very high quality game. It’s got a good balance between action and exploration, and giving you the freedom early on to explore and do things at your own pace is pretty fun. Then after that, it’s a straight rush to the end.
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