Game details Developer: Naughty Dog

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Platform: PS4 (reviewed on PS4 Pro)

Release Date: August 22, 2017

ESRB Rating: M for Mature

Price: $40

Links: PSN | Official website Naughty Dog: Sony Computer Entertainment: PS4 (reviewed on PS4 Pro)August 22, 2017M for Mature: $40

Can Uncharted really be Uncharted without Nathan Drake? For nearly a decade now , the cinematic action-adventure series has been as tightly linked to its main character as the Indiana Jones movies are to, well, Indiana Jones. Spinning off Lost Legacy as a Nathan Drake-free Uncharted experiment—just a year after the last major franchise release and at a cut-rate price point—is a move that smacks of being a desperate effort to squeeze the last drops out of a series that has lost its main protagonist.

So it's nice to say that, on the one hand, Lost Legacy shows that Uncharted is definitely still Uncharted without Nathan Drake. On the other hand, it also shows that Uncharted is still just Uncharted, Nathan Drake or no.

A not-so-dynamic duo

With Nathan out of the picture, Lost Legacy draws from some of the series' secondary characters, focusing on the player-controlled Chloe Frazer and AI assistant Nadine Ross (plus the surprise appearance of another familiar face that I've been asked not to spoil). I hope you recognize these characters from their previous Uncharted adventures, because Lost Legacy seems to assume quite often that you know them and their history with the series. If you don't, there are only mild allusions to explain how they got here and why you should care about their adventures.

The treasure-hunting Chloe and the more mercenary Nadine make for an odd pairing, which the game makes a valiant effort to explain through a lot of retrospective exposition about how they met up and why they're working together. There's something of a token effort to link the protagonists through a shared sense of loss—Chloe for her father, Nadine for her mercenary group—but it never feels very natural, and the unlikely team-up never quite gels.

























Chloe and Nadine go through a lot of emotional dips and peaks as their stressful adventure puts multiple strains on their partnership, acting like old pals and blood rivals at turns. But none of these emotional beats feels especially earned. Instead, the game ends up with a lot of actions that seem to make sense more for narrative convenience than for the purposes of believable character and relationship building.

That doesn't mean there aren't some thoroughly enjoyable exchanges between the pair, including a few Nathan Drake-style one-liners that made me chuckle out loud. And as usual for the series, the superb voice acting and motion capture help elevate the written material to a level above many games without the same production values. On the whole, though, I never really bought in to the new dynamic adventuring duo that Lost Legacy was trying so hard to sell.

Villains that chew the beautiful scenery

It doesn't help that the treasure-hunting adventure Chloe and Nadine are tasked with is one of the weakest of the series, plot wise. In a lightly fictionalized and heavily stratified India on the brink of a civil war, our heroines are seeking Ganesha's Tusk, a relic with huge religious and semi-mythological significance to the country's Hindu population. In their way is Asav, a bloodthirsty and maniacal mercenary leader who thinks the tusk will unite people behind his royalist bloodline.

Even by the low standards of Uncharted antagonists, Asav is a snarling and scenery-chewing villain, monologuing ridiculous rants through multiple opportunities to easily kill his foes. With plans and motivations that seem to shift with the wind, Asav doesn't even provide a good foil for Chloe and Nadine to bounce good lines off—nor a convincing threat to the pair's well-being.

The Indian setting, though, provides a good excuse to craft a tight mythology around stories surrounding a few Hindu gods and the ancient societies that were trying to protect those gods' secrets with cities hidden deep in forested mountains. This, in turn, provides an excuse for Naughty Dog to craft some of the best architecture and scenery in a series already brimming with quality examples of each.

Every few minutes it seems there's a new breathtaking vista to take in or a beautiful giant statue of a Hindu god or mythological king. Then there's the usual intricate, ancient stone-and-crank technology that makes the ruins come to life, which is as impressive (and unlikely) as ever. Even the simple platforming and block-pushing puzzles are enjoyable-enough opportunities to just revel in the graphical splendor of your surroundings. For pure digital sightseeing, Lost Legacy is at the top of its game, especially if you can give the graphics an HDR boost through the PS4 Pro.

The play’s the thing

I've gotten this far in the review without talking about the actual gameplay in Lost Legacy because there's really not much new or interesting to say about it. The game plays so similarly to last year's Uncharted 4 that it might as well be a DLC pack rather than a standalone release.

The majority of play time is still taken up by wandering the beautiful jungle ruins, searching for a path of overhangs to jump and climb with your preternaturally strong fingers and upper arms. These lengthy sections provide a good, low-stress excuse to get lost in the game's wonderful locales, including an extended section where you can drive around relatively freely using a map to search for points of interest.

It's easy to get turned around or struggle to find your way in the over-detailed environments, and there were plenty of times where seemingly safe jumps ended in unexpected death. Still, the game provides a decent, subtle hint system to help push you forward if you get stuck for too long, and the beautifully smooth animation makes the climbing sections low-impact fun.

The climbing bits are interspersed as usual with somewhat-forced encounters with armed bad guys, though these seem blessedly less frequent and onerous than they have been in recent Uncharted games. Unfortunately, the enemy AI remains relatively brain-dead (at least on Normal difficulty), making it relatively easy to sneak up on countless enemies and take them out with a one-button stealth takedown. It's almost implausible how easy it is to evade their detection; even as you leave countless corpses in your wake, the guards will only seem mildly and temporarily worried rather than conduct a full-out panicked search.

If you're found, the enemies will often charge blindly at you or stand uncovered out in the open, just asking to be shot. A very generous health regeneration system means it's also relatively easy to dash out, kill a few bad guys while absorbing bullets, then dash behind some convenient cover and be good as new within seconds.

Add in some extremely simplistic two-button melee combat and enemy variety that's divided into three extremely basic types (armored, unarmored, and sniper), and you get combat that feels like a repetitive chore more than a really engaging firefight most of the time.

All told, Uncharted Lost Legacy is an incredibly by-the-book affair. Everything from the crowd scenes to the car chases to the "surprise" moments when a handhold gives way to the "thrilling" time-sensitive escapes from crumbling ruins feels like ground that has been well-trodden by ten years of these games. Lost Legacy most often feels like it's just going through the motions and checking off the Uncharted checkboxes without much passion or inventiveness, at this point.

As a debatable plus side, Lost Legacy doesn't overstay its welcome. I managed to reach the credits in well under seven hours of play time, and even a 100-percent completionist run would probably only add a couple more hours to that total. This leaves little time for character relationships and plot threads to play out without feeling clipped. It also kind of adds to the feeling that this $40 adventure would have worked just as well as a couple of episodes of Uncharted 4 DLC, rather than being awkwardly packaged into a relatively sparse full game (Update: The original version of this story misstated the price. Ars regrets the error).

If you're looking for more Uncharted, then Lost Legacy will definitely provide it. If you're looking for more from the Uncharted series, though, you'll be pretty underwhelmed.

The Good

Incredibly gorgeous architecture and sculpture in detailed jungle ruins.

Some genuinely funny one-liners and scripted moments.

Subtle hint system makes it hard to get stuck.

Climbing is enjoyable, low-stress fun.

The Bad

New protagonists never quite gel as a team.

Ridiculous plotting and scenery-chewing antagonist.

Weak AI makes firefights feel like repetitive chores.

Even the "exciting" bits feel predictable and well-worn at this point.

The Ugly

The thought that we might get one of these every year.

Verdict: Try it if you simply must have more Uncharted in your life. Skip it if you finished Uncharted 4 and felt satiated.