Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection Review - Two Great Adventures for the Price of One

Written by Brandon Hofer on January 26, 2022

Reviews: Revisit Nathan’s search for pirate treasure and get to know the supporting cast even better with this collection.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves brings Nathan Drake and the rest of the cast and crew natively to the PlayStation 5 for the first time. This collection includes both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End as well as the standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Uncharted 4 features Nathan Drake as well as his family as friends like Elena and Sullivan while also introducing some new characters into the fray such as Nathan’s brother Sam and Nadine Ross. You meet Sam pretty early on in the game but don’t run across Nadine until you get to a certain mission. Even though Uncharted 4 has been out for a number of years at this point, I won’t go into story details but the interaction between Nadine and Nathan was very entertaining for me and they played off each other well. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy takes place after the events of Uncharted 4 but is a smaller adventure, both in terms of the cast and the overall story. The main characters in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy include Nadine Ross from Uncharted 4 as well as Chloe who was in previous entries in the Uncharted franchise. Together they are trying to track down an invaluable historical item and they are trying to do so before the game’s main antagonist can get there. As far as gameplay is concerned, if you have played any of the previous Uncharted titles, you know what to expect from The Lost Legacy as well. I did enjoy seeing how the relationship between Nadine and Chloe developed throughout the adventure and the small references they made to previous Uncharted titles.

When you boot up Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves on PS5 you will immediately notice how much better it runs. It ran perfectly fine on the PlayStation 4 when it was originally released, however, this new collection is definitely using the PS5’s hardware to its advantage. For example, the loading times are now much quicker thanks to the SSD inside the PS5. It really is nice to be able to get into games quicker instead of having to sit through loading screens that at times seem like they take way too long. Of course, this collection utilizes some of the features that the DualSense has as well. While going through both adventures I definitely felt some of the haptic feedback if I was driving over rocky terrain, for example. In The Lost Legacy, there is an optional item that you can find that will turn the DualSense into a bit of a treasure magnet. When this item is equipped you will not only hear an audible cue when near a piece of treasure but the controller will vibrate based on your distance from the item. If the treasure is still a little bit away from you the vibration will be slight leading up to when you are standing next to it and the vibration is much stronger. This certainly helped me track down some items I might not have found otherwise. The audio in this collection is also really well done whether it is an environmental cue or a snappy one-liner from Nathan Drake. If you have a setup where you can listen to 3D audio that is even better. For those who like options you also have a decision to make on how you want the game to run. This collection will feature three different settings with “Performance”, “Performance+”, and “Fidelity”. Performance mode targets a smooth 60fps while Performance+ will target 120fps and a 1080p resolution. Obviously, your television needs to be capable of doing 120fps for this to work though. Finally, there is Fidelity mode where you can play in native 4K with a 30fps target framerate.

If you played these games on the PlayStation 4 and have decided to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 version you can bring your saves over, as long as you follow the process. Unfortunately, Sony’s upgrade policy and path is convoluted and needs a lot of work but I don’t know if they will fix it at this point. Regardless, you can bring over your save file from the PS4 to the PS5 version. For starters, you need to have previously transferred a valid save file from Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. You can do this using the “transfer saved data using PlayStation Plus Cloud Storage” method. If you didn’t have access to PlayStation’s cloud on PS4 or you simply didn’t upload your save files, I hope you still have access to your PS4. Once that is done and you pick which Uncharted game you want to play there will be an “import” option once you select “story” in either Uncharted 4 or Lost Legacy. If your save file is available the game will find it and import it to the PS5 and you should be good to go at that point. On the save screen you will just pick “New Game Data” where you will have to answer a prompt and then if you say you want to bring things over, you should then be able to continue from where you left off on the PlayStation 4 version. Hopefully, in the future, Sony can develop a process that just works instead of making you jump through a bunch of hoops but for now, follow those steps and you should be good.

Going through and playing this collection on the PlayStation 5 I was impressed with how good everything felt and how well it ran. These were great games when they were originally released on the PlayStation 4 but now they are even better, in my opinion. The loading times are great, the DualSense controller adds another level of immersion and the whole experience is really smooth (except the aforementioned transfer/upgrade part). I reviewed Uncharted 4 when it was first released on the PlayStation 4 as well so if you want to see me get a bit deeper into that game, be sure to visit my Uncharted 4 review. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a great standalone expansion to your Uncharted 4 adventure that features Nadine and Chloe and I really enjoyed the ride. The gameplay is largely the same as Uncharted 4 so you know what you are getting in that respect. I really enjoyed watching the relationship develop between Nadine and Chloe though as they experienced different trials throughout the adventure and getting to know each of them a bit better through some nice backstory.

If you are a fan of the Uncharted franchise I would definitely recommend picking up this collection. If you never got around to playing Uncharted 4 or Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and you have a PlayStation 5, I highly recommend you pick up this collection. If you are brand new to the franchise I would personally play the first three Uncharted games before jumping into Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy just so you know the story of the characters and to make sure you don’t miss any of the references or inside jokes. That obviously isn’t a requirement but I feel like you will appreciate where the characters are now if you know about where they came from. Uncharted continues to be a really fun franchise and now with this collection being on PlayStation 5, it runs better than it ever has before. Be sure not to miss out.

Note: Sony provided us a code for the Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection for review purposes.