Sony Playstation is fast-becoming a PC publishing staple thanks to Playstation Studios which is massively boosting the company’s creds for PC gamers. And with titles like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Days Gone breaking into PC as well as Final Fantasy VII Remake, things are looking up for PC gamers as more Sony Playstation exclsuives make their way to the platform.
Another new addition from Playstation Studios is Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection which brings in both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and its standalone expansion, Lost Legacy. With a movie to its franchise credit starring Spider-Man star Tom Holland, Uncharted has properly taken its place as Sony’s formal successor to Lara Croft and now sees the PC platform welcome the game in force as it brings in two stories in one title with Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves for PC.
The game releases on Steam and Epic Games Store on October 19th for $50. Originally released on Sony PlayStation in 2016 and Lost Legacy in 2017.
Plot and Gameplay
Despite serving as the latest installment in Nathan Drakae’s book in Uncharted, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a good starting point for Uncharted on PC. It foregoes the series’ parallels with Lara Croft and opens up to a more emotionally charged backstory of Nathan Drake and his brother. As a double feature, it also brings us to Chloe Frazer’s quest. If this is your first-time encountering the Uncharted series, the game’s world revolves around the main antagonist Nathan Drake. As a famed “treasure hunter”, he’s made a name for himself for his finds but in this world, “treasure hunting” is apparently a small yet booming industry. We’re introduced to Nadine Ross, Nathan’s brother Sam along with Uncharted long-time mainstay Chloe Frazer who serves as Nathan’s former love interest. Nate’s happily married by this point in the game.
The game plays much the same way despite their different setting and being on PC grants the game much better fluidity and smoothness which makes the game feel so much better on modern platforms. Sadly, Nathan Drake’s 4th outing foregoes much of the bombastic set pieces from older games with many of that corrected in Chloe’s story. The large and sprawling areas are a hallmark of Uncharted and its somewhat disappointing that we’re introduced to this part of the story.
Both games will feel the same way, with puzzles and terrain traversal still remaining as one of the main attraction of Uncharted together with its combat system. Yeah, Nate has a magic satchel allowing him to carry a ton of arms but some willing suspension of disbelief is in order as this is a game that sees statues come to life at some points.
That said, like many Sony PlayStation Studio title, Uncharted is a cinematic story delivered in a gaming experience. You get to sneak, roll, duck, slide, wire, swing and rappel your way thru trouble while ocassionally solving puzzles and shooting waves of bad guys while you do it. Its simple formula and Uncharted puts it well together, both for Nate and Chloe.
Graphics and Audio
Despite an original 2016 release, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection for PC is actually based off the PlayStation 5 remastered release. Which also means no multiplayer mode. Despite that, the game only uses repurposed textures which at this point in time, looks dated. While not to the detriment of the game overall, it does miss the point of having a detail settings in the options menu.
With much more graphical horsepower though, Uncharted can now use to that to fully realize its sprawling environment. No more pixelated flowers and foliage or dipping LOD for distant objects. Cranking settings can drive up scene details to a more vibrant level.
PC Port Report and Conclusion
Unfortunately as we are in the middle of hardware transition and tight release dates, I’m unable to provide a performance review as of this time. This will definitely follow in a future article for reference but for now, testing the game on an RTX 3070 in 1440p,
There are a few bugs as seen in the screenshot above where I had young Nathan running around the rooftops but just before the last jump, as I was setting up the sprint, young Nate went thru the in-game objects and is now stuck in the hollow world XD. Kidding aside, I’ve encountered this bug twice in my playthrough for the PC version but have never seen it on the Playstation although I can confirm it has happened on Forbidden West as well.
Ummmmm I think I swam to another dimension #PS5Share, #HorizonForbiddenWest pic.twitter.com/xTvBINEgm8
— Back2Gaming (@Back2Gaming) June 25, 2022
Clipping jokes aside, Uncharted on PC feels like a 2022 AAA title in its performance requirements. Despite a 12900K+3070Ti combo, our system sees ~90FPS on 1440p in Ultra. I say PS4 quality is Low settings, and despite what the name would imply, is actually fairly decent and gives the game around ~120FPS in our system.
Medium drops performance by a slight bit with High seeing a hit with performance going around ~100FPS. For NVIDIA users, DLSS v2 is present which should give better image quality and performance while AMD FSR is also an option although at 1080p, FSR 2 Ultra Performance at 1080p looks a Playstation Portable game, and while that’s respectable for platforms like the Stream Deck, serves more as a bandaid solution for underspecced system than anything else.
Technical hitches aside, Uncharted 4 is still a polished games and gameplay-wise, is a big change from all the waves of FPS games that keep coming out of the PC platform only to die in obscurity. While its purely a business from Sony’s end, their efforts to bring in their exclusives to PC ensure there’s a genre variety in the platform in the AAA scene and provides a nice break from the trend of shooter after shooter release. Releasing shortly after the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection should prove a nice fix for those looking to play another classic they can sit back to and relax and enjoy another wonderful adventure.
