Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection Review

Release Date: January 27, 2022

Genre: Adventure Series: Uncharted Developers: Iron Galaxy, Naughty Dog Platform: Microsoft Windows Publishers: PlayStation PC LLC, Sony Interactive Entertainment

"Review Copy Provided By Sony Interactive Entertainment"

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is a remaster of Uncharted 4: Thieves End and Uncharted Lost Legacy for the PS5 and PC (Releasing later this year). These games individually released in 2016 and 2017 for the PS4 and were essentially the end of the Nathan Drake Saga and shifted focus to his friend and former lover, Chloe Frazier with her first solo adventure. These games were graphical marvels when they initially released and truly pushed the PS4 to the limit of what developer Naughty Dog could do at the time, so why is there a need for a remaster of these two titles? Well, we are going to cover that and more as this review goes on.

The PlayStation 5 is substantially more powerful than anything the PS4 is capable of and with the remasters of these two titles, we can truly appreciate the added horsepower of the PS5 (and later PC). The upgrades to both games come in the form of adding three graphical modes:

Fidelity – 4K HDR 30FPS
Performance – 1440P HDR 60FPS
Performance+ – 1080p HDR 120FPS

Fidelity Mode is your native 4K image that offers both titles true 4K and not 4K checkerboarding giving the games substantially better looks and details never seen at the cost of the game only being able to run at 30FPS. This limitation is seemingly only on the PS5 version with the PC version not having this limitation. Given how much action is going on and the after seeing the game running at both 60 and 120fps, I honestly don’t feel people should really play the game at 4K unless they really want to admire the visuals.

Performance Mode is my preferred method of playing this game as you not only get the 1440P visuals aka 2K resolutions that upscales to 4K checkerboarding, but also are able to play the game at 60 FPS offering you the smoothest gameplay for these phenomenal titles.

Performance+ Mode is the last mode available allowing you to play the game at 1080P 120FPS should you have a monitor or TV with a high enough refresh rate to support the higher frames. Playing this on my Dell 32” VA monitor that offers 144HZ at resolutions up to 1440P allowed me to enjoy the higher fluidity of the 120FPS at the expense of the noticeably downgraded visuals. Is it the preferred way to play? I personally would say no as I prefer the Performance Mode and am personally fine with 60FPS but that’ll come down to what you prefer.

One of the next upgrades to these two titles is the usage of DualSense and let me tell you it feels incredible. The way the tension and vibrations are when you aim and fire off weapons and feel the recoil is immersive and dynamic to each weapon you use. Grabbing ledges and climbing all have incredible feedback and the feeling of different terrain when you drive a vehicle, and the traction is unreal. It’s not a massive selling point for this game but it’s notably at the very least.

There is also 3D Audio which sounds amazing when correctly calibrated and both games take full advantage of the faster load times of the PS5’s M.2 SSD allowing for Fast Loading and near nonexistent loading screens. And for those who have completed both games on PS4, you can import your old saves and pick up right where you left off. If you own the games physically or digitally, then all you will need to do is upgrade your copies of the game for a mere $10.

What of the multiplayer mode of the previous release? Well, you won’t find that mode here as that has been left out of this remaster and while that is not really much of an issue for me given that I didn’t play that mode, there are some who I know who thoroughly enjoyed it and will feel it a shame that it is no longer available.

TL; DR is Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection worth the purchase? If you’ve never played either title and have already played and enjoyed the first 3 titles, then yes this is a worthwhile purchase which will net you hours upon hours of fun and replay value. If you’ve already played both games and want to see what they would look like on your PS5 with all the additional improvements and performance enhancements, then this is a no brainer. It is unfortunate that this isn’t a free upgrade as there isn’t any new content to be had here, but it is what it is and for what it is it isn’t bad. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection gives you two of the series greatest entries with substantial improvements in graphically fidelity and performance while adding new bells and whistles and tweaks to what are essentially masterpieces of the previous generation.