I love how these thrilling sections always give me the sensation of scrambling along the edge of a knife, barely surviving in one piece, even though they’re largely scripted. It’s peppered with iconic moments that feel like you’re in control of a giant Hollywood action scene. Lost Legacy looks and sounds spectacular in gameplay, too.
The game knows how to draw your eye toward the smallest detail, which is a testament to the art, lighting, and camera work in cinematics. Solutions often require careful observation of the world around you for environmental clues, such as the way specific light sources cast shadows, which I always loved doing considering just how stupidly gorgeous Naughty Dog’s depiction of India is. One idea that does feel fresh is the occasional puzzles that block the path, which provide a great palate-cleanser to the action. But when the crate smashes through the floor and sends your characters plummeting down, one replies “No more crates.” And sure enough, those banal roadblocks are stricken from the rest of the adventure.
For example, there’s a moment in the opening act where you have to repeat one of those boring and ubiquitous crate-platforming sections from the last game. In fact, it oftentimes subverts expectations in clever, self-referential ways.
The benefit of rehashing some of the high points of the series is that Lost Legacy mostly trims out some of the more tedious mechanics of Uncharted 4 (I’m looking at you, winching). It feels like replaying a great linear action game game – still good, but without the novelty and suspense. Every shootout with disposable guns against mindless paramilitary dudes, every crumbling wall I had to climb and shimmy across, and every floaty driving sequence across the Indian planes felt directly lifted out of the previous Uncharted games. I had a distinct sense of deja vu with nearly every action scene of this six-hour adventure. This standalone adventure, set after the events of Uncharted 4, is packed with the beautiful vistas, exciting action, and memorable characters we expect from an Uncharted game, but the familiarity of it all made Lost Legacy feel more like a by-the-numbers summer blockbuster than the milestone events that came before it. A side effect of that, however, is that no one who plays The Lost Legacy will experience much they haven’t seen before. No one should play Uncharted: The Lost Legacy without first playing the rest of Naughty Dog’s epic adventure series.