Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (PC) Review – Uncharted 4 Sails into Port on PC

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (PC) Review

Well, it has taken six years — a lifetime in videogame years — for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End to wind its way to PC. The game made a couple of stops en route, including a remaster on PS5 that paired Uncharted 4 with its standalone DLC, The Lost Legacy. Now that Nathan Drake and Uncharted: The Legacy of Thieves Collection has ported into PC harbor, was it worth the wait?

Timeless Fun

Sometimes it feels like Uncharted 4 is almost as ubiquitous as Skyrim. Of course, that’s not really the case, since the game has, up until now, been a PlayStation exclusive. Like the Legacy of Thieves Collection on PS5, the PC release includes the single player games Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and The Lost Legacy. The PS5 remaster sharpened up the visuals with higher resolutions, support for the DualSense control, and positional 3D audio. It didn’t replace the textures or add any new content.

Along with games like The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, developer Naughty Dog set a high-water mark for immersive, character-driven action games. Uncharted 4 completed adventurer and sometime thief Nathan Drake’s narrative arc in a satisfying way. In addition to its excellent action, platforming, and impressive set pieces, Uncharted 4 was a textured family drama. The Lost Legacy was a new adventure starring minor characters from the main series. Chloe Frazer was a small-time hustler from Uncharted 2, while Nadine Ross was a paramilitary soldier and treasure seeker from Uncharted 4. Thematically and mechanically the two games were an excellent match. The DLC was essentially an entirely new and substantial game, excellent in its own right.

Six years on, just about everything still seems impressive. The writing and acting are sharp, and despite the social climate having seriously changed, nothing’s cringeworthy. Both games are still great fun. Uncharted 4 was a technical tour de force for its time, and it still looks very good, if not the bleeding edge darling it was in 2016. Its pacing still has some problems, and not every animation is buttery smooth.

Under the Shiny New Hood

PC gamers have waited patiently for this, and Iron Galaxy delivers all the bells and whistles they were hoping for. The game supports 4K resolution, and Ultra-Wide Monitor support. Just about everything is adjustable, including Texture and Model Quality, Anisotropic Filtering, Shadows, Reflections, and Ambient Occlusion. There are multiple levels of choice between performance and quality, but only windowed or windowed fullscreen (no actual fullscreen mode). While hardly essential, the PC version includes support for Razer Chroma RGB peripherals and Chroma Link compatible devices, as well as for Logitech models. When Nathan Drake lights up the skyline with dynamite, you can light up your desktop! While Legacy of Thieves on PC supports both NVIDIA DLSS 2 and AMD FSR 2.0, don’t look for raytracing.

One of the highlights of the PS5 release was support for the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and this is available on the PC using a DualSense and a wired connection. Of course it also supports Xbox and other controllers, plus keyboard and mouse.

Although more than 13 million people have at least tried Uncharted 4’s multiplayer, don’t look for it in the PC version. The port is single player only.

Grab It or Let it Pass?

There are so many variant builds in the PC world it’s probably impossible to say how the game will run for you. On my now rather humble PC — an i7 processor with an GeForce 2070 Super and running at 3840×2160– I was hitting 50-60+ fps with all settings on Ultra. If I dialed that back to a more reasonable, performance-focused setting, my framerate was consistently much higher.

Even at less demanding settings, there were some consistent issues with stutter, pretty egregious load times, and a couple all-out crashes. Players looking to pick up Legacy of Thieves might wait until a Day 1 patch addresses whatever technical wrinkles remain.

Graphically, Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy are showing their age just a bit. The new PC release pulls them from the past into something very close to present day standards, not that they ever looked bad. In terms of fun factor, writing and action, Uncharted 4 remains compelling. PC players, your long wait is over. The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection is definitely worth your time and money. If you’ve already played it on PS5, the port isn’t going to be a revelation or substantially different.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***