Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves reminds us about the core of the series — and The Lost Legacy did it better

gamepur.com:

Ever since Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog has ranked among Sony’s most respected first-party studios, pushing technology and narrative in the triple-A space. Uncharted 4 was no different. Released in early 2016, it was one of the first truly next-gen games of that era.

Cross-gen games like Watch Dogs showed a notable PS4 and Xbox One advantage, but there was still a sense of technical stagnation. It wasn’t until Uncharted 4 that we caught a glimpse of something that couldn’t be done on previous consoles. 

Uncharted 4’s visual fidelity made everything else at the time look years behind, but its impression ran deeper than that. The series’ association with technical innovation goes beyond pretty graphics. Technology has always been used to drive design, adding tiny details that make the overall experience more immersive or enjoyable.

In Uncharted 4’s case, shooting a pile of rocks on a slope would cause a rockslide that impacted the geometry underneath. Light shafts would penetrate smoke generated from explosions. Nathan’s chest hair strands were rendered individually. The list goes on.

Combined, these details contribute to this notion of Uncharted being greater than the sum of its parts. Uncharted 4 nailed this minutia of detail, leading to massive acclaim. However, while it has plenty of great qualities, its obsession with detail came at the cost of the core pillars that define a solid Uncharted experience.

Uncharted is defined by three pillars — combat, puzzle solving, and exploration. People remember Uncharted 2’s set pieces, but they didn’t dominate the experience. While there was a lot of high-intensity action, it also had a decent amount of puzzle solving and platforming. Every