Played on Playstation 4

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a weird hybrid of an expansion/spin-off in the Uncharted series. It’s the follow-up to Uncharted 4 (originally intended to just be DLC for it before turning into a full-blown game), and is the first game of the series to not feature Nathan Drake as a playable character, or a character in the game at all for that matter. If I feel like a game isn’t going to be for everyone, I like to disclose that right off the bat so that I don’t waste anyone else’s time, and so my review can be a bit more focused towards the people that I think will enjoy the game the most. So, with that said, I’m going to say that if you’ve never played an Uncharted game before, I don’t think The Lost Legacy is a good starting point for you. I don’t say this in terms of gameplay necessarily, since the game is very much just as welcoming to new players in that regard as the other games in the series. It’s just that I find that it’s a game that relies on you knowing the characters beforehand in order to fully appreciate the story, and so I think you’ll get the most out of the game if you’re already a fan of the series. Also, if I’m being honest, this is possibly my least favorite entry in the series, and so I think that you’ll have a better experience if you start out with the main series.

So, with that in mind, what’s going on in The Lost Legacy. Instead of taking on the role of Nathan Drake, this time we get to play as Chloe, who was first introduced in Uncharted 2 and has since become a fan-favorite character. I always liked Chloe, so I was excited at this prospect. She teams up with Nadine, the mercenary introduced in Uncharted 4. The two go on a treasure-hunt expedition for another lost relic of an ancient time, and so you’re given the usual Uncharted fare in terms of plot. With the exception of Uncharted 4, which I thought had a really rich and interesting story, I never really thought the Uncharted games had that great of a story in general, and so I feel about the same with The Lost Legacy. Rather, I thought the character moments were always the best parts of the story, and so luckily The Lost Legacy does still deliver in that regard. There are only really four characters in this game, though, and so it doesn’t quite feature as big of a cast as past games.

The Lost Legacy very much feels similar to Uncharted 4 in terms of gameplay, since it’s an “expansion” of that game. Because of this, I’m actually not going to go in-depth with talking about the gameplay mechanics like I normally would in a review. If you’ve played Uncharted 4, then you already know what to expect here. If you haven’t, I already established that I don’t think you should play this instead. There are some minor additions in mechanics, such as taking photo opportunities or picking lockboxes, but nothing major worth talking about.

Rather, what I will talk about with the gameplay is how things that Uncharted fans have come to expect will hold up in The Lost Legacy. There’s four main things in Uncharted games: traversal, combat, puzzles, and big set pieces. I found Uncharted 4’s traversal to be the most refined, and The Lost Legacy continues to make good on that. The only other thing I’ll say about this is that I found that the open-world stuff didn’t work as well in this game as it did in Uncharted 4. A lot of the game is actually more linear again, but then there’s one chapter around mid-game that’s very much open-world, and it really slows down the pacing of an otherwise short and fast game. I’m probably wrong about this, but with the combat I found it to feel identical to Uncharted 4. I’m sure there’s some new or missing guns or something, but to me it felt the same, so I was fine with that. The puzzles in The Lost Legacy really aren’t anything special. There are a few that are interesting, but for every interesting one there’s also one that’s equally frustrating and annoying. Finally, there’s the set pieces. It might just depend on your definition of what a big set piece is, but I actually found The Lost Legacy to be pretty light on set pieces overall. I found it to be probably the worst game in the series for set pieces overall, but interestingly enough the final set piece of the game might just be one of the best of the whole series. So, there’s that.

On a technical level, I’d put the game on par with Uncharted 4. Everything looks and sounds beautiful. The environments are still breathtaking, and there’s a large sense of photorealism that doesn’t sacrifice artistic quality. The voice acting is still what you’d expect, and the music accompanies the game’s tone quite well. Everything is about what you’d expect from the series. The only issue I want to bring up is that in a game that otherwise runs well, I had one section of the game that lagged really badly for me. It only happened for about 30 seconds or so, and like I said it’s the only instance where it happened, but I do feel like it’s important to mention that the game didn’t perform at 100% optimization.

This is probably one of the shortest Uncharted experiences, or at least it was for me. I finished the game in about 7 hours, which is probably about half the time it took me to beat Uncharted 4. There are definitely still plenty of side content opportunities to extend game time, though, much like all of the other games in the series. These things never really interested me personally, but they’re there for people that like them. I got my fun out of the game, and that’s about all I wanted from it. I always find the game length debate to be really subjective, as it depends what you want out of the game. If you want something you can spend a lot of time with, then maybe The Lost Legacy won’t be for you. However, I wanted a quick side experience from a franchise I enjoy, so I was happy with the amount of time I spent with the game. If it was much longer, I would have felt like it overstayed its welcome, considering that it’s just an expansion/spin-off for the series. To me, the game is just the right length, but for you it might not be.

For me, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was all-around “Uncharted, but just not quite as good as usual.” It has everything that fans love about the series, but it never quite reaches the same heights as the other games. It was fun to have a different side adventure with a beloved character, but the adventure itself just feels a little standard and by-the-numbers at times. It’s definitely still worth playing if you’re a fan of the series, but it’s just not one of the best outings for the franchise. I’d put it more on the level of quality as I would Uncharted 1, rather than the other three games in the series. It’s worth playing, but not anything truly incredible.

3.5/5