Uncharted Lost Legacy is the 6^th and objectively best outing in the Uncharted series. It’s not my favourite, that honour goes to Uncharted 2, but it’s the most complete and succinct experience the series has to offer. Although I dearly love the series, it’s one that has had many ups and downs over the years. From the pacing issues of the first game, to the supreme brilliance of the 2^nd, the fun but tired around the edges feel to Uncharted 3, culminating with the admittedly brilliant but perhaps unnecessary Uncharted 4, Uncharted Lost Legacy had a storming pedigree to live up to in a gaming environment which has left the now tried and tested gameplay loop of the Uncharted series looking and feeling a little long in the tooth and suffering from more than a little ludo-narrative dissonance. Although fun, being a treasure hunter that is in fact also a mass murderer moves beyond an Indiana Jones style romp into weird murder sim. The games look on the face of it like they should have more of a focus on puzzles, but what they actually are is poorly concealed third person shooters. Thankfully though Uncharted Lost Legacy understands this and although there is a large shooter element to the gameplay, there is far more focus on exploration and puzzle solving that previous outings. Whether that’s because Naughty Dog realise that the series will have to develop if it’s to endure the rigours of the modern gaming landscape or it’s because Uncharted Lost Legacy is more of a standalone expansion than a full release and thus able to take more risks is unclear, but whatever the reason, the game is much better for it.

Going into this, I also wondered if the game would suffer from casting issues, as it’s the first in the series that is without series protagonist Nathan Drake, however I’m happy to report that it doesn’t. The interactions between the two characters Chloe and Nadine can be somewhat campy at times, with Chloe fitting perfectly into the Drake role and Nadine acting as a super serious no humour contrast. This, coupled with the aforementioned sharper focus on exploration and puzzle solving means that the combat moves from must do annoyance to a welcome change of pace. One criticism I’ve had of all Naughty Dog games in recent years is that they seem to have utterly lost their minds when it comes to collectables. Moving from plentiful but fun to collect items in Uncharted 1, 2, 3 and The Last of Us, to the utterly incomprehensible load of collectables in Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted Lost Legacy although erring on there still being too many, introduces a bracelet that Chloe can find that tells her when there’s a collectable in the area. This meant that over the latter half of the game I missed much less collectables and the prospect of going back and mopping up the rest doesn’t make me want to vomit on myself.

Although I’ve mentioned that this is the best game in the series and they have largely done a good job of modernising the gameplay loop, if this series is to continue into the future with new characters, I’d like to see it have a serious look at itself. If The Last of Us is Naughty Dog’s serious arm, Uncharted is definitely the jokey half serious Indiana Jones arm of the developer, but the constant violence and comic book villains is beginning to feel a little wrote. It certainly has had its place over the last decade, but looking forward to the next, I’m not sure I can stomach another full-fledged release filled with characters I love walking from shooting room to shooting room. Out of interest, I’d like to see them take on an Uncharted game without guns… whether we will ever see that, I’m not sure.