Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End Review

Uncharted, Naughty Dog’s Gem. It’s back and it delivers. Uncharted 4, A Thief’s End picks up a few years later from where we last saw Drake and the gang. We get a nice look into Drake’s life after settling down with Elena. We see he has the wife, the house and 9-5 job. The story draws you in, as always Naughty Dog has in the series. But this time it’s a change that we see a different side of Drake. It’s a great beginning to a fantastic game.

As the story starts, we find Drake with his brother Sam (we’ll get more into that later). They are being chased and shot at, while you drive a boat in the ocean heading to an island. Presumably the island for whatever treasure the pair are after. Then we get a (playable) flashback. We once again get more of Drake’s back story and into his life and the love of his older brother, Sam. As you play you get the feeling that Drake looks up to Sam and would do anything for him. You also get the sense that the feeling goes both ways, but it also feels Sam may be out for himself.

The story gives us a “15 years later” where we find Drake and Same along with a friend has paid their way into a prison in hopes of finding a lost treasure. When things go wrong and the trio tries to escape the prison, Sam is shot and falls to what we think is his death. We see that it emotionally affects Drake and that it was one of the hardest choices he ever had to do, ether escape and leave Sam to die or get out with his life. Drake has no choice, if he stayed he would have been killed. But to our surprise, Sam lived! And spent the last 15 years in that prison with a cellmate that is king of a cartel.

Sam’s cellmate executes a prison break and takes Sam with him. Only to find out that the only reason he took Sam is because of the treasure he has been talking about and says he knows when to get it. The drug Kingpin gives Sam 3 months to get the treasure or he dies. This leads Sam to find his brother Drake to help find the treasure. But Drake left that life behind and is now a family man. But Drake will do anything for his brother, including lying to his wife Elena. And that my friend is just the opening scene! Which Naughty Dog does very well in past games and doesn’t disappoint in this opening scene.

The gameplay is spot on, with now lag in the controls and feels like the buttons are on a hair pin trigger that respond as fast as you can think of it. The load times between chapters is nothing to have a fit about. The only problem we found is the install time. It was 57 minutes for us some have reported longer and some shorter. We do miss the old pop-in and play days. Seems like technology took a step back in that department. The smooth game play moves in and out of the CGI parts so fluidly and sometimes it makes you forget you are playing the game and not watching a movie.

I really don’t feel think we even need to game into the graphics with this game since it’s so beautiful. The replay value of this is moderate, because of the multiplayer aspect of it, you can always get into that and destroy your friends at some online battles you’re offered a total of 4 modes to choose from: Team Deathmatch, Plunder, Command, and Ranked Team Deathmatch. And you can customize your character to what you like. But as for the story mode, if you want to go back through the game and find all the treasures and Easter eggs you can, but getting through the story is almost a sad feeling that you don’t want it to end. But with Naughty Dog, I would not be shocked to see another chapter in the series down the road.

Game 2 Gamer’s Final Score 5 / 5

Frustration Level