Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the PlayStation exclusive PC review

Sony continues to pursue its expansive strategy, bringing what until recently were considered strictly PlayStation exclusive to Steam. Even in the case of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection this is an absolute debut, as the adventures of Nathan Drake and his friends had never before ventured to explore the territory of the Windows platform.

Sorry that the Japanese house did not want to take a little more time and start with the Nathan Drake Collection, so as to offer PC users the complete saga rather than what basically stands as its epilogue; but in purely qualitative terms we are in any case facing a very relevant event, given the goodness of this collection both in terms of narration and on the technical and gameplay level.

After the uncertainties surrounding the conversion of Marvel’s Spider-Man, curated by Nixxes, we were really curious to understand how the boys of Iron Galaxy Studios had covered the splendid original work of Naughty Dog. In two words? Very good. But if you want the details, keep reading ours Uncharted Review: Legacy of Thieves Collection for PC.

History

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is the remastered collection of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, respectively. the final adventure of Nathan Drake released in 2016 and the independent expansion starring Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross that arrived the following year. These are in fact the latest productions linked to this excellent franchise, waiting for any new chapters which, however, have not yet been announced by Sony.

So if you are a PC user this will be yours first contact with the series, we suggest you watch some summary videos on the history of Uncharted before starting the fourth episode, in which we find a married Nathan and practically retired from his career as an explorer and adventurer after the many expeditions completed with his wife Elena. However, something forces him to get back on track: the return of Sam, the brother that the protagonist believed he had lost fifteen years earlier.

After taking on a large debt to a drug lord, Sam must absolutely get hold of the legendary treasure of pirate Henry Avery, therefore the help of Nate and obviously of his friend Sully will prove fundamental; also because on the trail of the important discovery there are the ruthless millionaire Rafe Adler and the skilled Nadine Ross, head of a group of mercenaries who will not fail to give us a hard time during the adventure.

At the history of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, nothing is really missing: Neil Druckmann and Josh Scherr have been able to outline the characters perfectly and set up a narrative system that combines spectacularity and feelings in an excellent way, supported by a great dubbing in Italian of extraordinary quality, which further enhances all the elements involved.

As for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, the plot touches different strings, but is equally engaging and interesting. In this case the protagonists are Chloe Frazer, adventurer with a stormy past and former flame of Nathan Drake, and Nadine Ross herself from End of a Thief, who work together to find the precious Fang of Ganesh.

Hidden somewhere on the Western Ghats, the artifact is also in the sights of Asav, ruthless leader of the rebel forces who wants to take possession of the legendary object so that he can give him absolute authority in front of the people, allowing him to start a revolt that leads him to control the region. United by an unusual friendship, Chloe and Nadine will have to deal with the troops in the pay of Asav, but also with their respective backgrounds.

Gameplay

Structurally Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End it is still a jewel today, capable of mixing a cinematic narrative and exciting game sequences that leverage four elements: climbing, exploration, fighting and puzzle sections. The balance between these different aspects is not always perfect, but the resulting experience is extraordinarily enjoyable and well finished, from the flashback-style tutorial with all its narrative value to the exploration phases aboard an off-road vehicle in Madagascar.

In all cases it is the level design to play a leading role, and the fact that the settings are splendid represents an extra not just in view of our wandering in search of the right passage, the platform to reach, the grip to cling to to push us towards the next battle , towards the next puzzle or the next magnificent interlude sequence. The novelty of the grapple at this juncture is absolutely welcome, as it further enriches the gameplaycreating a series of new and funny situations.

The challenge is not exasperated, far from it: the experience is always maintained enjoyable and relaxing, the checkpoints are practically instantaneous and therefore you can concentrate on what the game actually has to offer, rather than wrapping up because you cannot solve a puzzle, you cannot find the right way to continue or a firefight with the mercenaries in the pay of Adler seems too complicated to overcome unscathed. Despite this, the arsenal is confirmed as varied and interesting among pistols, machine guns, rifles and grenades.

The Lost Legacy tries to experience something different, including new maneuvers (see the swing with the grappling hook), extra weapons to be recovered in the scenarios and a greater amount of fighting. Its expansive nature ends up compressing the various elements and the result is a more dense experience, which manages to avoid repeating the same solutions too often and in the end proves to be very solid and well written.

The PC version

After the port of Marvel’s Spider-Man made by Nixxes, which actually gave us some headaches, we were really curious to see Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC, in this case as part of a conversion curated by Iron Galaxy Studios. It is true, the number of adjustments available is not as large as in the case of the video game dedicated to Wall Clamp, but in general we are faced with a well optimized productwhich manages to be very consistent and offers excellent scalability.

Great protagonists are the upscaling technologies, which include DLSS 2.0, FSR 2.0, and a traditional mold percent scaler. It is interesting to note how the system indicates the actual rendering resolution for each different preset: considering an output of 2160p, choosing “quality” the game runs at real 1440p, which drops to 1253p on “balanced”, 1080p on “performance” and 720p. on “ultra performance”. With an RTX 3070, however, we were able to use the standard scaler at 70%, thus obtaining an effective 1512p and a stable 60 fps at maximum visual quality.

The screen of settings advanced allows you to select a general preset or modify individual items relating to texture, model quality, anisotropic filter, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion, with anti-aliasing mysteriously absent. An indicator provides for any choice the impact on the video memory, while an internal benchmark has not been inserted but there is a frame counter to understand how the game behaves. Ultrawide monitors are also supported, and the accessibility options are numerous.

As for the quality of the technical and artistic sector of Uncharted 4: End of a Thief and Uncharted: The Hidden Legacy, there is not much to say: these are two visually extraordinary titles, in which nothing is left to chance. ; able to involve with incredibly spectacular sequences and to amaze thanks to the details of a thousand wonderful and evocative panoramas.