“Uncharted: The Lost Legacy” Review

Our 2016 Game of the Year, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, featured an ending that was damn near perfect.  While we won’t go and spoil it, it left a glimmer of hope that the series would continue somehow, some way….

It’s weird to have Nadine Ross follow you around. Can you really trust her as a companion?

Our 2016 Game of the Year, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, featured an ending that was damn near perfect.  While we won’t go and spoil it, it left a glimmer of hope that the series would continue somehow, some way.

So here comes Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Naughty Dog’s promised single player DLC that got so big, it ended up being a standalone release.  Say what you want about whether or not it’s “just DLC,” but the bottom line is The Lost Legacy is simply more Uncharted, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What Is It?

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy follows the likes of Chloe Fraser, who series veterans initially met in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  Players will immediately feel at home with Chloe as the protagonist because for all intents and purposes, she’s pretty much a female Drake and Sully.  She’s easily as athletic as either of the two, and she definitely knows her way around weapons and studying artifacts, so there’s no questioning anything here.

Something players will question, though, is the fact that for most of the game, Chloe will be buddied up with Nadine Ross, who spent a lot of time as an antagonist in A Thief’s End.

Again, we won’t spoil anything for you as everything comes together, but it definitely should affect how you think about her when playing the game.  At the end of the day, these women are after some treasure, and some other bad guy is looking for that same treasure.  Classic Uncharted.

Why Should I Care?

Aside from one section which we’ll go into some detail about in a little bit, it’s worth noting that The Lost Legacy really does nothing new.  Pretty much everything that’s done in The Lost Legacy is something you’ve done in a previous Uncharted.  Whether it’s raiding a hidden chamber, fleeing from an assault tank as it follows you, without care for the environment or village it just ruined, or escaping and surviving a moving and exploding locomotive, The Lost Legacy is full of intense moments.  But if you’ve played every other Uncharted game, you did all this already.

The highlight of The Lost Legacy is an open world section that makes you wonder what Naughty Dog would do with a truly open world game.

So besides the fact that you’re using a couple women, what exactly makes The Lost Legacy different? After the game’s introduction, the game puts you and Nadine in a four-by-four that you control as you seek out a path to a temple that houses the treasure you’re looking for.  In order to do that, you have to solve a puzzle that requires you to activate the waterworks on all four sides of the map.  But in addition to that, you can go treasure hunting for something else entirely by going to various places marked on your map.

This latter part is completely optional, but for what it’s worth, it’s also the first time since probably Jak II where we’ve seen Naughty Dog sort of play with around with open world gameplay.  Should a future Uncharted or even The Last of Us Part II have more open-ended aspects, Naughty Dog could find themselves with another winner entirely.  The developer doesn’t really catch flack for how linear their titles have become, and while that’s not a bad thing, Naughty Dog making an open world game is something a lot of us would really like to see.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

Don’t let the fact that there’s hardly anything new in the game fool you, even though the game was meant to be DLC, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is standalone because it’s a pretty meaty title.  At around eight or so hours, the game is just as long as every game in the original trilogy, and it’s arguably superior to the original game.  We all love our Nathan Drake, but Chloe Fraser is just as awesome, and not only is she a breath of fresh air, her story was also an awesome one to experience.

Nobody would have a problem if Chloe starred in more Uncharted games as she definitely fits the bill.

I wouldn’t call it a must-play, especially if you’ve played every other Uncharted game, but we’ll say it again and again.  There’s nothing wrong with more Uncharted, and The Lost Legacy is exactly that.