Before you read this you might consider this four hour video showing all of the cut-scenes from Uncharted 4. Even if you have no plans to play the game, it should give you an idea of the ambitious and occasionally artfully directed cinematic moments of the game. This entire post, beyond the first two paragraphs, will be spoilers and the video is one huge spoiler.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is one of 2016's highest rated games, a quick glance at Metacritic reveals a solid 93. For all of the shortcomings of a site like metacritic, nothing else reviewed higher in major video game review outlets in 2016. It is by a fair majority the 'best' game of 2016 and one can easily see why folks think so. It is a beautiful game, one of the prettiest to date, with diverse gameplay mechanics and a story that goes places. Naughty Dog did a great job building a gameplay experience into a game that is essentially focused on telling a modern Indiana Jones murder mystery with a theme of brotherly love. Nathan Drake is at his most subtle this time around, though, and though he manages to murder roughly 1500 human beings in this game he -does- let some of the other characters shine in this fourth game. Elena's demeanor is different, she's a little more badass now, but her banter with Nathan is very nearly human. The only major story gripe that I have all seems to center around Troy Baker's appearance in the main cast as Nathan's estranged brother Sam. He doesn't fit into the previous game's plot particularly well, his banter with Nathan and the other surviving cast seems under-served, and the flat performance of the character is one of Baker's worst.

Extensive sidebar: Ok, I lied. The gameplay in Uncharted 4 has an incredible amount of flaws considering it only builds upon the skill-free, hands free style they created on the first three Uncharted games. It seems as if Naughty Dog only included the worst faux co-op aspects of The Last of Us here as scene transition and filler time meant to trigger additional banter. Not only does finding a crate to get on a ledge to knock down a ladder get old but the game finds twenty different ways to do that same action repeatedly throughout each of the games 22 chapters. Climbing is risk free as sequences are short and auto-saves are frequent, puzzles don't really exist apart from one where you're required to open Nate's journal to sort images. I felt like games like Tomb Raider, Zelda and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver offered evolving puzzle challenges that weren't too obscure to figure out and that legacy simply doesn't exist for Naughty Dog. Remember that Naughty Dog didn't exactly invent this type of gameplay, Prince of Persia (2008) did this no-consequences approach to platforming well before and for the sake of the game itself. The only reason a game like this is consequence free is for the sake of keeping the player engaged. The shooting is unbearably floaty and somehow lacks the impact of Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us. The only new additions to gameplay are the grappling hook and the vehicular gameplay sections both of which are incredibly limited experiments within the scope of the game. You're funneled through the game in service of the story. You really have to keep pressing on and focus on the story as inspiration to keep going. At one point I became so bored with the climbing, shooting and helping my pal find a ladder that I turned on auto-aim and just went auto-pilot through the story on the easiest difficulty. That is how I feel about the gameplay in a nutshell, the lowest common denominator is unavoidable.

Neil Druckmann and Amy Hennig had originally written a story where Sam betrayed Nathan presumably around the time it seemed he would in the last few chapters of the game. There is a lie revealed, and as such a sort of betrayal had, in this part of the game. Sam reveals that he lied about escaping from prison with a famous criminal warlord, the debt that Sam owed for being freed was a lie. In the final version of Uncharted 4, written by Druckmann and Bruce Straley, Sam decides to betray Rafe (yet again) and this is one of the most unsatisfying moments in the plot. Betrayal is a long-standing theme in Nate's adventures with other treasure hunters and some of the best moments the series has to offer. Hennig's contributions to the series kept reveals like this exciting and her exit from the project leaves us with an Uncharted story that feels half-baked and low-stakes despite how harrowing some of it seems. From swinging above ledges in impossible cities to a hilarious sword fight in a burning ship, the stakes just don't feel dire or butt-clenching. Hennig's Uncharted 4 would have featured Todd Stashwick as Sam, and Stashwick is a better actor for this type of "backstabber" role. He'll be in Visceral's upcoming Star Wars game penned by Hennig, so we'll see.

The script had issues, or rather the writers had creative differences so dire that it lead to Hennig's departure, a full re-write and some level of game redesign. I can't really do more than speculate, so I'll just say that I prefer the first three games plot-wise. Sam's introduction is brilliant at face value. We saw Nate as a kid in Uncharted 3 with excellent results but at no point did we ever get hints that he had a brother at that young age. In fact, Uncharted 4 pretty clearly shows Nate and Sam acting as partners in crime until the incident in Panama where Sam was shot and left behind, presumably dead. So which is it? Did Nate meet Sully on the streets without a mention of Sam? There is a plot hole there that I can't get my head around. I spent a lot of time with each game so maybe I missed a very sharp bit of exposition that explained that. My point is that if we're going back to Nate's childhood again to develop Sam as a minor protagonist, it should explain why we didn't see Sam the last time we were Nate as a child. The early scenes in the game appear to develop reasoning as to why Nate's obligations to his brother are so strong, but they ultimately raised more questions than they answered for me. If Sam is the catalyst for a new treasure hunting adventure is guilt enough for this new, human Nathan Drake to lie to his wife and leave on a mission that will very likely kill him? Yes? I see how this leads into Elena's anger later on, where she feels he left her behind in the harshest way possible, lying to her repeatedly. As a semi-fan of the previous game's story I found this far out of character for Nate who is incredibly loyal to the Lawful Good, less loyal to the Neutral Good and primarily acting as the Chaotic Good. Sam is more or less the Chaotic Neutral when he isn't being the Chaotic Good and this clashes with Nate in a way that isn't fitting for the Uncharted series thus far.

Sam as an impetus for the story pokes holes in it what was already somewhat paper thin to begin with. By calling into question how he fits into Sully's timeline with Nathan and Nathan's alignment with Elena Sam debases the three strongest character relationships in the series. The result is a very long game that is full of Nate and Sam developing their relationship over the course of the game. That shouldn't be such a problem, right? Joel and Ellie spent a whole game together in The Last of Us and it worked incredibly well because they were paired in such a way that Joel protected Ellie, Ellie humanized Joel and their backstory separate and together developed naturally. Shoehorning Sam into Nate's life feels like Season Two of Marvel's Uncharted: The TV Show on the WB. It isn't just an issue of where Sam fits into the Uncharted universe, which he barely does, but an issue of how the character is written. He is written in an incredibly monotonous way and as a result Troy Baker's performance is flatter than Leonardo DiCaprio doing a Boston accent in Shutter Island. Just like Nolan North, Baker does his best work when he is given a quality script where he has time to develop the character with input towards the development. Baker's flat, lifeless version of Sam is occasionally sensitive and relatable as Baker often can be but the underworked accent and repetitive dialogue forces him to play off of the other Drake brother in questionable ways. It almost seems like Druckmann wanted Baker to do "Nathan Drake-lite" to make them seem like two swords forged together, as if Nathan learned all he knew from this man we'd never seen before. The problem is that the writing gives Sam none of his own real personality, and honestly I think betraying Nate would have given him a standout moment to create something interesting in a remarkably rote Uncharted adventure.

Troy Baker's talent isn't so much in question here, I would venture to guess he didn't have much creative control over the script. Either it was handed to him complete, or he didn't have room to develop an interesting character out of the blandness he'd been given. Baker is largely monotone, the banter with Nate is trite and a lot of "ch'yeah, he he, n'yeah bro" attitude nonsense. It comes across like two 40 year old men talking about how cool it is to work on a videogame, not take an amazing death defying journey towards a giant pirate fucking utopia scam gone wrong with a Goonies ship ending. North and Baker are both talented at ad-libbing, being funny, and none of that finds its way into the overly serious plot. That said, Baker isn't always good at what he does. He had the same issues when voicing the incredibly irritating douche-master Snow Villiers from Final Fantasy XIII which was similarly flat and likely restricted in performance. Baker's depiction of Delsin Rowe in Infamous: Second Son is easily one of my most hated protagonists of the last decade, and it would appear he had free reign of the role that he developed alongside the actor that played his brother in that game. The brotherly love theme somehow worked better in that game, as distant as it was for most of the plot, probably due to the different personalities of the brothers. Baker was the most interesting part of the dud that was Far Cry 4 playing Pagan Min, almost eclipsing his work as the Joker in the characterization of Min. The Drake brothers just don't play off of each other as you'd think and in several interviews they'd made it seem like it would be a strong dual-lead performance, and in my opinion North has the superior performance in Uncharted 4. Nothing could possibly touch Troy's biggest lead roles, but seeing a guy with a fair and consistent range of characterization working with so little is very disappointing. Following the game's release, Baker signed and promoted a petition to remove a negative review from Metacritic's consideration. He later retracted his statements after blowback from the awful internet harassed him to the point of leaving twitter. At the very least this embarrassing crib note shows he had passion for the project, he believed in his performance. I found both the tweet and the performance rather lame.

The same way I'm done playing Infamous games, I'm uninterested in visiting the Naughty Dog's Uncharted world ever again. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy aspires to bring us back to that world but I'm not only tired of non-Hennig written stories within the gameplay format, I'm also tired of the gameplay. Oh, except the multi-player is really fun in Uncharted 4. Last of Us Part II will hopefully have multi-player, the stuff from the first game was amazing fun. I dunno... Am I way off in judging this game harshly? I felt like there was no need for Uncharted 4, no matter how pretty it was I didn't feel the need for it. It's like having a Lethal Weapon 4. I'm similarly worried about the prospect of The Last of Us Part II being just as beautiful, but phoned in and poorly written. Anyone else?

Damn, that's quite a write up! I completely disagree. I think the whole point of Sam was to show how much Nate had changed as a character. They get to this at some point in the plot how Nate had been on all of these adventures, so he knows how all of these trips end. Sam doesn't. Your assertion that he is "Nathan Drake - lite" is somewhat correct because Sam is who Nate used to be. He's a person who loves adventure and is obsessed with finding the answer to problem at hand. Nate sees his old self in Sam and chooses go the other way. I guess that's what I have to say about Sam.

Everything about Sam's character was so cliche and generic and its been done a billion other times in other movies/TV shows and often better. Even when they first announced that Drake had secret brother I knew pretty much every major story beat they were going to hit and I was mostly right. UC4 in general felt like it was out of ideas and just throwing shit at the wall. I don't think I've ever finished a game out of anger until UC4. I liked all the other UC games to some extent but 4 just felt unnecessary. Which is a shame because the production values are out of this world

hmm

Wow completely disagree. Thought Sam's character was great and what it did for the final game was brilliant.

I agree with this. I thought Sam was one of the better parts of that game and I really enjoyed Uncharted 4.

I just played all 4 Uncharted games back to back via the Nathan Drake Collection and then Uncharted 4.

I agree that Sam is "Nathan Drake lite", but isn't that kind of the point? They broke contact 15 years before the final game and Nathan has clearly changed a huge deal in that time while Sam has been stewing in jail obsessing over the same thing - he hasn't been given the opportunity to grow.

When it's revealed Sam betrayed Rafe it may of been a little obvious but that wasn't the point that he betrayed him. It was the events after that that showed how Nathan had really changed (this is his story after all), and showed how Nate had in essence become the older brother because he had been through three of these adventures at this point and had seen it's actually not worth it in the end.

I'll concede that it is a little weird that no one had even mentioned him in the last three games but I'll forgive that because Uncharted 4 is so bloody good it wipes the floor with the first three, it was the first one I actually enjoyed playing rather than fighting through the gameplay to get to the cutscenes or the massive set pieces. I think Rafe is severely underrated as an antagonist and he is much much better than the previous games villains (sidebar: why do people think Lazarevic was a good villain? He was one note cliche and just dull).

Uncharted 4 is Uncharted cross The Last Of Us. And it's absolutely stunning.

I should note I play all these games on easy.... I play like the action movies that in my head they should be, less time in cover and more time just bombing around having fun.

Hunh, I was actually pretty surprised by how well executed Sam Drake was.

Right off the bat my mind went to betrayal, because of course the not-dead brother that comes back with a job is gonna be trouble. But they did a real good job of humanizing their relationship both through the flashback scenes where you get Nathan basically idolizing his big bro and then the present-day brotherly ribbing. Sam felt right at home thieving around with Nate and Sully.

The betrayal thing was still in mind, but they sell a lie effectively (mainly by making you literally play through the lie) and then upend its insinuation by ultimately bringing it round to a deeper familial bond. He wasn't just in it for the money. The search for Libertalia was their mother's incomplete expedition. That was my read of the character at least. Shades of Uncharted 3 Nathan, but not quite just that.

I thought they also did a decent job of working him in around what we already knew of Nathan's past. The meeting with Sully was definitely something that had me asking where the heck Sam would've been; but given the way their relationship was portrayed in the Uncharted 4 flashbacks, it's easy to imagine them not necessarily being connected at the hip all the time.

So yeah. A good semi-reflection of Nate, but also one not necessarily for him. That in-and-of-itself was a refreshing change of pace for this kind of story. When Nate, Elena, and Sully rescue Sam there's no hint of temptation there. No internal struggle for the player character (Nate). It's just straight-up "hey, we came for you, there's no drug lord, so let's get the fuck outta here." Any sort of self-revelation there for Nate would've felt hackneyed and literally redundant in the series. His demeanour there frames his actions up to that point in an endearing light, and support his claim that he was never involved in the whole adventure for the treasure.

The whole story felt like a great way to display the development these characters have had by essentially throwing them into Sam's adventure.

I thought the game explicitly dealt with the "where was Sam when Nate met Sully" thing by saying that Sam was sort of in and out of jail at that point in Nate's life, since they were stealing and such to survive. Obviously they couldn't actually retcon things to make Sam make sense, but it's an Uncharted game so I just sort of went with it. I mean Uncharted 2 has blue guys. The games have never really made sense or been totally consistent and that's okay.

I liked Sam's character. I thought having an abrasive guy with his own motivations was more interesting at times than the always loyal superfriend Sully (though, of course, I'm fond of Sully too.) I also thought Sam DID betray Nate. By pulling him away from Elena on false pretenses and making him risk his life (and possibly lose it if you think that Nate dies in the ship explosion and everything else is either dying delusion or Nate's version of heaven) he did a lot of damage. A deeper betrayal would not have been in the spirit of Uncharted. Leave that for the Last of Us. Uncharted doesn't need to be gritty and real. It's about traipsing around the world to fantastic locations and having ridiculous adventures, like a big budget movie.

I also didn't have a problem with Troy Baker's performance.

I feel like in general you were expecting too much from Uncharted 4. The previous games were also uneven and flawed. The Last of Us is Naughty Dog's masterpiece and hopefully Part II continues that trend. Uncharted 4 was just a way of sending off that series with a big splashy goodbye, and giving the PlayStation 4 a huge exclusive to help put a boot on the neck of Xbox.

I'm surprised you did a whole write up of Uncharted 4 without deeply discussingthe graphics, which are the real reason the game exists. It just looks fantastic at all times, and really shows what the PS4 can do. They did just enough to the gameplay with the revamped climbing (sliding, swinging, and pinioning actually made it feel like playing a game rather than a long interactive cut scene for once) and improved stealth. The setpieces were huge, the open world parts were tolerable, and the pirate story had a nice parallel to Nate's.

I, for one, am looking forward to Lost Legacy because Chloe's a great character and Nadine's...okay. The game should look great and have some exciting setpieces. That's enough for me. I don't go Uncharted for greatness. I go to it for (very expensive looking) thrills.

This is the only Uncharted where I felt the game play was approaching "good" and the one whose story I liked the most. I liked an Uncharted game, after a generation of complaining about how shallow and one note the first three were I had to admit that this one is really good after finishing it. Hell, it was good enough to make me consider buying the Uncharted collection and try the first three again.

Although i disagree on why, i do agree that it was the worst plot in uncharted and the least exciting game in the series. I also couldn't slog through the last of us so i know my opinion is not the majority.

Thanks for reading. You know I didn't really think of that point as I was writing this up. I see how Sam is a foil for 'old Nate' VS 'new Nate' and I was more hung up on how Nathan Drake wasn't quite himself without seeing it as intentional. While you're totally right, I still don't think the 'old Nate = Sam' thing was very interesting or at the very least it felt under-served.

Yes, this sums up my experience. No real surprises beyond the development of Libertalia and chasing down Avery's treasure. I kind of hit that point when Elena showed up and we started driving trucks up ancient elevators, I was like... "Shit, I need to finish this stupid game before I just put it down for good."

I'm leaning towards Uncharted 3 as my favorite, but I do agree U4 is a really pretty game that is buttoned-up and spotless. I didn't mean to come across as if I didn't like the game, but rather I had no gripes beyond some franchise fatigue with the gameplay, and I felt like Sam was just the weakest player. You're absolutely right about Rafe, he is the best villain in a game that needed a clear Chaotic Evil in a game with a democratically shared protagonist role.

You didn't feel like they were 'forcing' Nate into retirement and the changes to his personality were slightly drastic compared to the previous game? I could see why Sam is basically a sign post for why Nathan Drake couldn't just keep going on his murder spree, and that sort of ties into why I don't like Sam's character: He ushers in the end of the series while mirroring what was stupid about Nate in the past. In hindsight I like that Nate says, "hey fuck the treasure, this isn't worth it." but when I was playing I wanted him to be the greedy, spree-killing treasure hunter who would have to see things through. The idea that the main character has outgrown the game I'm playing doesn't necessarily enhance the experience for me.

It is very likely that I missed the bit about being in and out of jail. They did their best to tie Sam into Nate's past, my point was that it felt like Uncharted 4's existence kind of hinged on that and it was a bland note in a pretty game. You're right that I was expecting a seamless plot and that is kinda silly on some level but after playing through The Last of Us several times I felt that Uncharted 4 needed to exceed my expectations. As for graphics, yes it is probably the prettiest game on the system still even better than Horizon for me. Chasing down Avery's faux pirate utopia is an amazing story, but I don't think the gameplay improved along with the graphics at all.

They're all worth playing. The first game always gets a sort of 'less than' tag from folks but it goes places as great as the other three.

@grizzlybutts:

They're all worth playing. The first game always gets a sort of 'less than' tag from folks but it goes places as great as the other three.

I don't think the Uncharted games aren't worth playing, but my experience with the first three was not at all what everybody else seems to have gotten out of them. Putting this in spoiler blocks because it's a little off topic and I kinda wrote a lot.

Troy Baker did fine, but I didn't care for his character that much. I think Uncharted 4 mechanically plays the best, looks phenomenal, and has the best story of them all rounding out a good finale. That said I didn't really love the game in comparison to the first and third Uncharted's. Yeah, Uncharted 2 is my least favorite I'd say (though I enjoyed it more going through them back-to-back in the remaster). I only went through Uncharted 4 once, and it's a game that I keep losing motivation to get through on impossible. It just kind of bores me honestly so the last time I played I stopped around the part where the 'twist' happens. I'd always much rather just play The Last of Us again, which outdid the Uncharted games to me. I am not that excited for The Lost Legacy (so much so that I didn't bother watching any E3 footage of it, but now that I say that I probably will...) but I know I'm going to play it regardless. Oh, and I played Golden Abyss the day Uncharted 4 came out, and I enjoyed that!

I'm right there with you on the shooting being garbage. I won't ever replay any Uncharted games. But I have started to replay The Last of Us, the remastered version and I feel like aiming for headshots is far easier. Uncharted games are cheap summer movies I'd never watch twice, Last of Us is a blu-ray you use as a coaster and watch every couple of years.

I think The Lost Legacy could be good, if it changes things up a bit. I don't know what that'd entail, though. I'm kinda with you on the second game, was good but forgettable for me beyond the review hype for it when it came out.

@grizzlybutts: Just finished watching some extended E3 footage for it, it looks like Uncharted 4. It wasn't very exciting, but still, like I said, I'm going to get it most likely.

It felt like with Nate they were more reinforcing a character change that already happened (mostly in Uncharted 3), and course-corrected where he'd oversteered at the start of Uncharted 4. Fair enough if you preferred a difference course for things to take, but it all worked for me.

Though I'll say I never got the sense that Drake had outgrown the game I was playing. His motivations for his actions changed.

I actually didnt like the writing in the first 3 games. The betrayals as you said were typical of the series and kind of lazy, if Sam had betrayed Nate it would have been the least surprising thing ever.

That said I think this game has the worst pacing of all the Uncharted games, including golden abyss, which leaned a bit too hard into constant action.

I remember a bombcast where they were praising the fact that you could spend up to 20 minutes doing light platforming and busywork and I remember thinking if this is where we're at with big budget games then I might be done with them.

The shooting in these games is fine, not great but certainly better than the platforming and brain dead puzzle solving.

I still liked Uncharted 4 but there are chunks of that game that I hate. (mostly kid Nate sequences)

Yeah there was a need for Uncharted 4. That series deserved a better last part than Uncharted 3. THAT game was a dud, at least story wise.

I think you might be confusing good performances with likable characters? Maybe the intent of Uncharted 4's script was to make you Question Drakes decisions when it comes to his brother?

Same thing with Delsin Rowe. That guy is supposed to be kind of a giant ass. I think that is completely valid. Not every story has to have a hero going through a journey of self discovery or an anti hero getting redemption. Not everything has to follow the Hollywood formula. It's like we're trained to look for character arcs these days. Everybody is a writer and they're all writing the same stories in their heads.

Oh and Pagan Min was lame. Because in that case it kinda seemed they just wanted to recapture Far Cry 3's magic a little too hard. Didn't matter that much, because the guy is in like 2 scenes of the game. It did bring us an awesome alternate ending though.

@colonel_pockets: Yeah, I pretty much agree. I've always found the Uncharted plots to be quite loose and not at all the reason why I play them. I play them to simulate the feeling I get from watching Indiana Jones and other adventure stories.

Also, is there any real way of knowing why Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog? I know that Neil Druckmann helped write Uncharted 2 and then went to work on The Last of Us, so it is hard for me to digest the idea that Hennig's departure is a major reason why Uncharted 4 has a bad story.

I could easily see the failure in approaching a cinematic game as if it was a full length feature, no matter how seamless the story transitions in and out of gameplay at points it is still an interactive experience for 60% of the playtime. I think my takeaway wasn't so much that I needed the 'Hollywood' formula, rather I expected something more after The Last of Us and hints of different ideas in Uncharted 3. Sam's inclusion felt lazy and while I would concede that Baker performed well for Delsin (despite being an awful character), I don't think Sam was performed or written up to the standards of the rest of the cast. Baker has done better and so have the writers of Uncharted 4.

In that case I think Uncharted 4 was definitely Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (old TV show) in terms of Indiana Jones comparisons.

As for the small exodus from Naughty Dog, here are some articles that kind of fill in the blanks:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/10/alan-tudyk-i-left-uncharted-4-over-weird-changes-to-script/

http://segmentnext.com/2016/05/16/uncharted-4-changed-amy-hennigs-departure/

What I gather is that she left because she didn't like the changes brought in by a change in leadership on the project. Some key voice actors agreed with Hennig and left soon after. Other employees working on the project left simply because the hiccup gave them a chance to consider other job opportunities.